COLLECTED ESSAYS

AND REVIEWS

COLLECTED ESSAYS AND REVIEWS

OF

THOMAS GRAVES LAW, LL.D.

Edited with a Memoir by

P. HUM E BROWN, LL.D.

FRASER PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT (SCOTTISH) HI8TORY AND

PALAEOGRAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

EDINBURGH

PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1 9 0 4

CONTENTS

PAGE MEMOIR ...... vii

1. THE MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS IN THE FOUR­ TEENTH CENTURY, OR BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS ONE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE PRINTING...... 1

2 . BIBLICAL STUDIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES .... 20

3. THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE C H U R C H ...... 53

4 . SOME CURIOUS TRANSLATIONS OF MEDI EVAL LATIN . . 98 5. JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC, I 47O-I55O . . . 105 6. SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH . . .138 7 . DEVIL-HUNTING IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND . . . 155 8. LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF CARDINAL ALLEN . . . 176 9. ENGLISH JESUITS AND SCOTTISH INTRIGUES, 1581-82 . . 217 10. THE SPANISH BLANKS AND CATHOLIC EARLS, 1592-94 . 2 44 11. JOHN C R A I G ...... 2 77

12. FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J...... 305

13. ROBERT BRUCE, CONSPIRATOR AND SPY .... 3 13

14. COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL, THE HERO OF LIERRE . . 3 20

15. SIR WILLIAM STEWART OF HOUSTON, A CAPTAIN OF THE KING'S GUARD...... 3 2 7 16. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE ..... 3 3 2 17. ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND : A SEQUEL . . . 365

18. INTERNATIONAL M O R A L I T Y ...... 3 7 7

APPENDIX----BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 3 93

I N D E X ...... 3 97

764 F o r their kind permission to reproduce the contents of this volume the publishers have to express their cordial thanks to Sir James H. Gibson Craig, Bart., and to the Editors of the Nineteenth Century, the Contemporary Review, the New Review, the Edinburgh Review, the Scottish Review, the Scotsman. MEMOIR '

Thomas Graves Law was born at Yeovilton, in Somer­ setshire, on December 4, 1836. He came of a stock long distinguished for intellectual vigour. His paternal great­ grandfather was Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle (1703- 1787), a prominent leader of the Latitudinarian party in the Church of England in the eighteenth century. A disciple of Locke, whose works he edited, he was also the patron of Paley, first prebendary and subsequently Archdeacon of Carlisle in Bishop Law’s diocese. Other works by the liberal bishop were an Essay on the Origin of Evil, Inquiries into the Ideas o f Space and Time, Considerations on the State o f the World with regard to the Theory of Religion, and an anonymous pamphlet, entitled Considerations on the Propriety o f requiring Subscription to Articles of Faith—all produc­ tions vigorously advocating liberality of thought equally in politics and religion. The fourth son of the bishop was Edward, first Baron Ellenborough (1750-1818), Lord Chief Justice of England, a member of the Cabinet of * All the Talents,’ and Councillor to the Queen of George hi. during the period of the Regency. As two sons and a son-in-law of the bishop likewise sat on the episcopal bench, and his grandson, Edward Law, first Earl of Ellenborough (1790-1871), was Governor-General of India, Dr. Law thus came of a paternal ancestry equally distinguished in Church and State. In his mother’s family there had been three admirals, one of whom, Thomas, first Baron Graves (1725-1802), grand- viii MEMOIR father of Dr. Law, had won renown under Howe on ‘ the glorious 1st of June ’ 1794. No one was less prone to the ‘ boast of heraldry ’ than Dr. Law, but he had a natural pride in an ancestry which had played such a considerable part in the history of his native country. Thomas Graves was the fourth child and third son of the Honourable William Towry Law, youngest son of the first Lord Ellenborough, and Augusta Champagne Graves, daughter of the first Baron Graves. His father had originally served in the Grenadier Guards, but in 1831 he had taken orders in the Church of England, and at the time of his son’s birth was Rector of Yeovilton and Chancellor of the diocese of Bath and Wells, of which his kinsman Henry Law was bishop. In 1838 he was appointed Vicar of Whitchurch, in Dorsetshire, and two years later to the living of East Brent, in Somerset. On the death of his mother in 1844, Graves, then in his ninth year, was sent to school at Somerton, about seventeen miles from his home, where he had his two elder brothers as companions. The following year his father removed to the living of Harborne, in Staffordshire—the last he was to hold in the Church of England—and Graves was successively sent to St. Edmund’s School, in Birmingham, and (as founder’s kin) to Winchester, then under the charge of Dr. Moberly. In 1851, when he had been four years at Winchester, there happened an event which gave the direction to his whole future career. In that year his father left the Church of England and entered the Church of Rome. In consequence of this step his son felt himself constrained to leave Winchester, and after a year’s attendance at University College, London, where he had De Morgan and Francis Newman among his teachers, he entered the Roman Catholic College at MEMOIR ix Stonyhurst in 1853. For a time he hesitated in his choice of a profession between the Church and the Army, and his father actually obtained for him a cadetship in the military service of the East India Company. After a short time spent at the Company’s Military College at Addiscombe, however, Graves, under the influence of Faber, his father’s intimate friend and counsellor, definitely cast his lot by entering the Brompton Oratory in London, which owed its foundation to Dr. Newman. It was in 1855, at the age of eighteen, that he took this decisive step which was to determine his life for upwards of twenty years. It was out of intense religious conviction that Law had joined the religious community in the Oratory, and till near the close of his residence he discharged his spiritual duties with all the zeal of his early conviction. It was during these years, also, that he acquired those tastes that were to be the pleasure and the stimulus of his later life. A scholar by instinct, he found in the Oratory both the opportunity and the means of pursuing his natural bent. The preparation of a catalogue of its library and the arrangement of a valuable collection of sixteenth century m s s . in the possession of Cardinal Manning, gave him the knowledge of bibliography which he was afterwards to turn to such good account. At first his own studies lay mainly in the province of Biblical criticism, a notable result of which is the Dissertation on the Latin Vulgate, contained in the present volume, which he continued to regard as his most important con­ tribution to scholarship. An accident, however, turned his attention to the special subject which, as the present volume proves, was to be the main and absorbing interest of his life. With a view to the canonisation of Roman X MEMOIR Catholic priests and laymen who had suffered martyrdom from the reign of Henry vm. the Roman authorities appointed a commission which regularly met at the London Oratory. On such a commission Law’s habits of research were invaluable, and his services took definite shape in a Calendar of English Martyrs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—the first of the many con­ tributions which, under a different inspiration, he was to make to the same subject. But Law’s researches in Biblical criticism and ecclesi­ astical history led to another and immediate result. As his published writings signally prove, his was eminently a judicial mind, indefatigable in the search of truth, keen to apprehend it, and resolute to follow wherever it might lead. Gradually as he pursued his chosen lines of study, the conviction was forced upon him that the beliefs he had so ardently accepted did not rest on satisfactory evidence. It was with the utmost pain that he found himself driven to a conclusion which involved either a complete breach with his past, or continuance in a posi­ tion which must every day become more intolerable, and his last two years in the Oratory were a period of mental distress proportioned to the sacrifice which sooner or later was now inevitable. In 1878 he took the step which he could no longer conscientiously postpone : he quitted the Oratory and severed his connection with the Church of Rome. Law was now without a profession or an occupation, but he was more fortunate than others who have taken the same step. In Mr. Gladstone he found a powerful friend, who had been greatly impressed by his writings, and who admired his personal character. By a fortunate chance the custodiership of the Signet Library, Edin­ MEMOIR xi burgh, fell vacant the year following his severance from the Church, and he became a candidate for a post for which his experience as librarian of the Oratory had specifically fitted him. On the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone, cordially supported by that of the Rev. Dr. Jessopp, another of his personal friends, he was elected to the post out of a list of thirty-nine candidates. A more congenial position he could not have found, and he could now look forward to a life which promised the fullest gratification of the tastes which had been the determining motives of his career—an enthusiasm for historical re­ search for its own sake, and a desire for the truth within the domain which he had taken for his own. Mr. Laws first care was for the noble library of which he was the chief custodier. In every respect he may be considered to have been an ideal librarian. A natural courtesy and tact, cultivated by his special discipline, made him the most pleasant of officials in all his relations. In the library itself there prevailed a harmony and order of which the visitor was conscious the moment he entered it. In the additions he made to the existing collection, which were largely left to his own discretion, he displayed the sure and wide judgment of one who had the trained faculty for discerning what was valuable and permanent in literature. When he entered on his duties, a catalogue, begun by his distinguished predecessor, Dr. David Laing, was in course of preparation, and it was his first task to see it completed. Subsequently he himself undertook a subject-index, which extended to several volumes, and involved the labour of many years. Of all his services to research this was perhaps the chief, and not a few students have acknowledged their indebtedness to a work which has materially lightened their own labours. Not xii MEMOIR the least valuable of his services, also, lay in his ability and readiness to give counsel to workers not only in his own special province, but in the most diverse departments of research. Gradually, indeed, as the years went on, it was discovered that in the Custodian of the Signet Library, Scotland possessed a scholar whose curious erudition and promptitude in communicating it were invaluable to all who had the opportunity of consulting him. For twenty- five years, which he regarded as the happiest of his life, Mr. Law was thus engaged in tasks than which none could have been more congenial, and which yet left him sufficient leisure to pursue his own studies, and to make considerable contributions to literature. In 1886, seven years after Mr. Law had settled in Scotland, he found the opportunity of further service to the country of his adoption. In that year, on the sug­ gestion of Lord Rosebery, the Scottish History Society was founded for the publication of unprinted materials connected with the national history. In association with Professor Masson and Bishop Dowden, Mr. Law threw himself enthusiastically into the work of founding the Society, and pledged his interest in its future by accept­ ing the post of Honorary Secretary. When he under­ took the duties of the post, he perhaps hardly realised the amount of labour it would entail. He conceived these duties, indeed, in the most exacting sense: not content with his strictly secretarial work, he virtually made himself co-editor of the successive publications of the Society. For seventeen years Mr. Law was engaged in what was emphatically a labour of love—on the con­ stant watch for materials for the Society’s publications, and sparing no pains to present them to the world in worthy form. From the beginning it was realised by the MEMOIR xiii members of the Society that its success was mainly due to his ability, tact, and enthusiasm; land in 1903 they gave substantial proof of their recognition of his services by presenting him with a silver bowl and a purse of two hun­ dred guineas. In making the presentation Lord Rosebery expressed with his usual felicity the collective feeling of the Society. ‘ There is not a person here,’ he said, ‘ and there is not a person conversant with the work of this Society outside, who does not know the deep debt, the eternal debt, of gratitude we owe to our Secretary, Mr. Law, who has been the life and soul of the Society. He has acquired documents, he has superintended their printing, he has weeded the documents he has chosen, and from day to day and from hour to hour, all through the years the Society has existed, Mr. Law has been its moving spirit.’ From first to last forty-four volumes were issued by the Society under Mr. Law’s supervision —a monumental contribution to the materials of Scottish History, with which his name will ever be honourably associated. Another distinction received by Mr. Law should not be passed over, as he himself regarded it with peculiar pleasure: in 1898 the University of Edinburgh conferred on him its highest honour, the degree of Doctor of Laws, ‘ in recognition of his learned labours and inde­ fatigable industry.’ When Dr. Law originally settled in Scotland, he 11 found himself in a world in curious contrast to all that he had hitherto known and experienced, and he himself would humorously comment on his difficulty in adjust­ ing his mental focus to his new surroundings. Educated as a Roman Catholic, he found himself among the most intensely Protestant of peoples. But from the first it was his strenuous endeavour to make himself at home in xiv MEMOIR the country he had adopted, and by a fortunate coinci­ dence his historical interests lay precisely in that period of the national history which is the most strikingly characteristic in the development of the Scottish nation. In the century of the Reformation he found a field of interest in which he could at once combine the results of his early training and serve the cause of Scottish litera­ ture. As was to be expected from his previous experience and discipline, his treatment of that thorny period has a value peculiar to itself. Detached alike from Roman Catholic and Protestant prepossessions, his attitude towards the Reformation was that of the purely his­ torical observer, concerned only to understand how events really happened, and submit the results o f his observation to the judgment of the reader. In the leisure which was left to him from his duties as librarian and secretary of the Scottish History Society, Dr. Law assiduously pursued his own studies, the fruits of which are only partly represented in the present volume. In 1883 appeared his edition of Craig’s Catechism, the Introduction to which will be found in this collection. In this Introduction it may be said that a period of Scottish history was for the first time treated in a spirit of perfect detachment, and with a manifest desire to explain persons and events and opinions in strict relation to the general conditions of their time. An edition of Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism fol­ lowed in the next year, accompanied by a Preface from Mr. Gladstone. In his introduction, Dr. Law had to take account of the most momentous period of Scottish history—the period when the forces were let loose which resulted in the overthrow of the ancient Church and the establishment of Protestantism. As was a necessity with MEMOIR xv him, he made himself master of all the facts he had to survey, and his presentment of them -is indispensable to every student of the period. Again, however, it is in the point of view, the dispassionate treatment, that we find what was original and unique in Dr. Law’s contributions to Scottish history. On a larger scale, and in Dr. Law’s own opinion his most important historical work, was his Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, published in 1889. The subject was the one in which he had first broken ground in the study of history, and to which by preference he always returned. Based on hitherto unpublished documents, the book was adjudged by such English scholars as Dr. A. W . Ward and the late Bishop Creighton to be a contribution of the first importance to Elizabethan history. Of all Dr. Law’s writings it is perhaps the one in which his gifts as an historian found freest play. Out of the tangled materials at his disposal he had to combine at once a narrative and an exposition which exercised all his patience and skill, while the grotesque incidents which diversify the story of the Conflicts afforded him a suitable theme for that good-natured irony which is seldom absent from anything he wrote. To the last important historical work of Dr. Law a pathetic interest attaches from the circumstances in which it was accomplished. Invited by Lord Acton to contribute a chapter on Mary Stewart to the Cambridge History, he gladly undertook a task for which his pre­ vious studies had been a long preparation. He had not well begun his labour, however, before he was stricken by the illness from which he never recovered. Partly as an anodyne and partly as a duty, he persisted in his xvi MEMOIR work, which he carried through with a cheerful stoicism which excited the admiration of his friends. A few days before his death he had the gratification of dictating the final corrections of his proofs. It had been the most exacting of all his literary undertakings, and would have taxed his powers even in his best days. Within the limits of thirty pages he had to present an adequate outline of the most eventful reign in Scottish history, the peculiarity of which is that all its leading occurrences were inextricably bound up with the diplomacy of the chief European powers. What he had to achieve, there­ fore, was to find his way among the vast collection of foreign and domestic authorities that directly or in­ directly bear on the period, to grasp the guiding threads in what is a bewildering labyrinth of intrigue and policy, and weave such a narrative as would exhibit the remotest causes and effects that resulted in the transformation of Scotland into a new nation, committed to other destinies in all that constitutes the life of a people. Even when in full vigour the labour of composition had always put a severe strain upon him, amounting at times, as he him­ self said, quoting Cardinal Newman, to sheer ‘ physical pain.’ This difficulty of mere expression was aggravated by a constant nervous dread lest he should have been led into some error of fact or misleading statement, perturbing him to a degree which surprised his friends in one who in other matters took life with such easy equanimity. Yet in the final result of his toil there will be found no trace of the impeding circumstances in which it was accomplished. His chapter is written in the simple, lucid style at which he had always aimed, and which by its very quietness of tone gives their full and precise meaning to word and phrase, which he re­ MEMOIR xvii garded as the scholar’s triumph in the art of writing. Taken as a whole, his presentation of the most complex and difficult of all the periods of the national history is the most admirable example of his special gifts as a historian—insight, judgment, and impartiality. The works that have been enumerated are among the most important that Dr. Law contributed to historical literature, but he wrote much besides that has permanent value. For the Scottish Text Society he edited Catholic Tractates of the Seventeenth Century, and, a work of special interest, Purveys Revision of Wycliff's Version o f the New Testament, turned into Scots by Murdoch Nisbet, c. 1520—the latter produced during the years of his illness. To the Camden Society, the Scottish History Society, the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, he also made various contributions, all of them distin­ guished by his peculiar care for minuteness of detail. To magazines and journals he was all along a frequent contributor, and the present volume mainly consists of occasional reviews and articles selected as being of more than passing interest. From the foregoing account of Dr. Law’s interests and labours it might be inferred that his life was that of a recluse student, exclusively absorbed in the reading and writing of books. No inference could be wider of the mark. Inherent as was his passion for research, it was in the life and action around him that his primary interests were always centred, and his concern with the past had ever a direct reference to the questions of the present. Till his last illness, indeed, he had an exuber­ ance of vitality which seemed more in keeping with a life of action than a life of study. And in this connec­ tion it may be noted that he possessed a remarkable b xviii MEMOIR gift for which he did not find scope during his resi­ dence in Scotland—the gift for public speaking. By his brethren in the Oratory he was regarded as their most eloquent preacher, and those who had the oppor­ tunity of hearing him speak or lecture in public could not be surprised at his reputation. If a public career was debarred to him, he at least extracted the fullest enjoyment from what his life offered. It was impossible to meet him without acquiring an added zest in living. His varied experience, his multifarious information, so far away from the beaten track, and his abounding spirits made him one who carried wisdom and good-humour wherever he went. It was in the midst of his family in his delightful home at Duddingston, however, that one best realised the genial breadth of his nature, and many will retain an ineffaceable memory of a hospitality which was equally of the mind and heart. Shortly after he settled in Edinburgh he had married Wilhelmina Frederica, daughter of Captain Allen of Errol, Perthshire, and Lady Henrietta Dundas Allen, in whom he found a helpmate who shared all his interests and strengthened his hands in everything he undertook. Of him it could not be said, as of some scholars, that he was married to his books. When alone with his family, consisting of a son and five daughters, he became a veritable boy, joining in their games, throwing himself into their amusements, and identifying himself with all their interests. It was in 1899 that Dr. Law was first seized with the painful disease which gradually undermined his strength, and from which he knew there could be no hope of ultimate recovery. By nature, as he himself MEMOIR xix used to say, he instinctively shrank from all forms of pain, but, as destiny willed it, he was to undergo pain in its cruellest and most persistent shape. How he bore it has already been indicated. The rule he put before himself was simply to do what he had hitherto been doing as long as brain could think and hand could write, and during those years of ever-increasing suffering and pro­ stration he unfalteringly carried out his resolve till within a few days of his death on the 12th of March 1904. Scribens mortuus est might be said of him with all but literal truth.

The present volume, it is believed, contains all Dr. Law’s essays and reviews to which he would himself have wished to give a permanent form. With the exception of the Dissertation on the Latin Vulgate, all were written after he left the Church of Rome. This Dissertation expresses opinions at variance with those of the other papers in the volume, but it has been inserted along with the rest—in the first place, on account of its intrinsic value, and secondly, because, as was said, Dr. Law regarded it as his most important contribution to scholarship. Only one other paper—that on Inter­ national Morality—does not fall precisely into line with the others in the collection, and it is produced mainly because it is an excellent example of the lighter vein in which Dr. Law sometimes wrote so happily when he chose. The paper, it should be said, was originally written for a society which met for the discussion of ethical problems, and was not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject, but merely to present an aspect of it which might give occasion to debate. With the exception of these two, all the papers have a unity XX MEMOIR of purpose and treatment which give to the book the character of an independent and organic whole. Taken together, they may be regarded as variations of one theme, the theme which was the absorbing interest of all Dr. Law’s maturer life—the relations of the Roman Catholic Church to the world in the successive stages of its development in dogma and constitution. To bring out this underlying unity of aim the various papers have been arranged in groups, each dealing with a specific period—the first with the Middle Ages, the second with the latter half of the sixteenth century, and the third with the first half of the seventeenth. The text here reproduced is exactly as it originally appeared under Dr. Law’s own supervision. The Editor has to express his obligation to Mr. Walter B. Blaikie for his kindly permitting him to use the Bibliography of Dr. Law’s writings which appears in the Appendix to this volume. The Index is the work of Mr. Henry D. G. Law.

P. HUME BROWN. THE MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

OR

BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS ONE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE PRINTING1

L e t me say first of 'all, gentlemen, that I have not made choice of this subject because I pretend to have any special knowledge of it, but rather because of my ignorance. It is just because I, as a librarian dealing with books from morning to night, find it so difficult to realise life without print that the question has for me a peculiar fascination. And to all of us, what­ ever our avocation, it must be a matter of constant curiosity and wonder how the world in general, and the book-trade in particular, went on before the first printer was born. It is the function of history to reconstruct the past, and its greatest charm is to take us for a while out of the daily routine of our lives and to allow us to roam in imagination over bygone centuries, visit ancient cities, and discourse in turn with princes and people, foolish and wise men, of another age. I purpose, then, this evening that we should travel together on a voyage of discovery, in search of an ex­ tinct species of publishers and librarians—publishers and librarians who never saw type. I propose, if you will allow me, to personally conduct you on an imaginary visit of a few hours to a single locality at a definite date, that is, the city of Paris, or rather, the Latin Quarter of Paris, in the year 1345, more than 550 years from the present date and a full century before the invention of printing. I fancy I hear some one objecting at this point—why

1 A lecture delivered to the Edinburgh Typographia, 1895. A 2 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF Paris ? why not Scotland or Glasgow ? My answer briefly would be, because in the fourteenth century the true home of the Scottish scholar was Paris. Paris was indeed the centre of European literature and learning. The University of Paris was the great book mart. There were many thousands, some say as many as ten thousand students there, eager for learning and hungry for books. About a fourth part, perhaps, were foreigners. They were, at least, divided into four so-called ‘ nations,’ elect­ ing their own procurators and to a large extent governing themselves. One of these nations, at our date known as the English nation and in the following century as the German nation, comprised the natives of Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, as well as England, Scotland, and Ireland. Some of these countries had already universities of their own. Scot­ land at this date had none, and for this and many other reasons Scottish students at Paris came largely to the front. Year after year we find almost half of the pro­ curators or heads of the nation elected from the Scots. Thus in 1342 there were Walter Sinclair, William Greenlaw, and Walter Wardlaw. In 1344 David Mair and Wardlaw again, more than once. In 1345, our year, there are William Greenlaw, Thomas Wedayl, and Walter Dun. Another fact which shows how the Scottish element dominated in the Anglo-German nation is this. There were together at the university in the middle of the fourteenth century twenty-one young masters of arts of this Anglo-German nation, who afterwards be­ came bishops, and of these twenty-one no less than nine belonged to the small country of Scotland. There was our friend the procurator, Walter Wardlaw, who became Bishop of Glasgow; there was John Peebles, Bishop of Dunkeld; Walter Trail, Bishop of St. Andrews; Matthew Glendonwyn,Bishop of Glasgow; Gilbert Green­ law, Bishop of Aberdeen; Walter Forester, Bishop of Brechin; and John Crannach, also Bishop of Brechin. You may then consider yourselves quite at home at Paris in 1345. There was indeed no Scots college in our sense of the word. There was a foundation—the rent of certain lands which went towards the support of some Scottish BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 3 students, but they had to find their 9wn lodging as best they could. W e will then deliver our letters of introduction to a countryman, William Greenlaw (sive de viridi monte), who was elected procurator of the English nation on the 8th of February 1345, and I propose,that with his help we should in the morning interview the so-called Stationers and Booksellers, then adjourn for lunch, and in the afternoon pay a visit to the worthy librarian, Master John—I do not know his surname—who will show us over the most famous library of the University, the Sorbonne. W e shall first meet in front of the cathedral, Notre Dame, then cross over to the left bank of the Seine by the ‘ Little Bridge * to the Latin Quarter, where are all the colleges and buildings connected with the university, and where alone the members of the book-trade are allowed to set up their shops. Before we look into the street of the Parchment Makers—which, by the way, still retains its name of Parchment Street—a sort of Paternoster Row where most of the trade congregated, we will take the next turning into the Rue du Fouarre, or Straw Street, a rough-looking lane but the very heart of the university, in which were the principal schools. If you peep into any one of them you will find the master alone provided with a desk and seat, the students, by a special enactment of the Pope, seated on the bare floor, with their notebooks on their knees. They mitigate the roughness of their seats by bundles of straw which serve as cushions, and it is this straw scattered about which gave the place and even the whole university the familiar name of Straw Street. Turning back, then, a few yards, we shall probably find a stationer in Parchment Street. There were at the time twenty-eight stationers in all at Paris, and three of these, John Little, Thomas Ponton, and one Thomas, a cleric, were English. You will perhaps prefer the shop of your countryman, Robert Scot. Outside his window you will see neatly written out on a sheet of vellum a list of books on sale or on loan, with the prices and the names o f the owners. But this needs explanation, and if you go in he will give it you. I know nothing of this Robert 4 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF the Scot. At least you must not expect from him philo­ sophical generalities or sentiment, or even rhetoric, but if you will have the patience to listen to him he will give some plain facts, the substance of which would be as follows:— The book-trade (he would tell you) was at this time made up of (1) Stationers or Writers, (2) Librarii or Booksellers, (3) Parchment Makers, (4) Illuminators, and (5) Binders. But there was no such thing as free trade. All of the tradesmen connected with the manufacture of books were under the direct control of the university, of which they were officers and subjects. The stationer who copied, or employed others under him to copy, new books as well as old, was the equivalent of our printer and publisher. The name has now generally come to mean tradesmen who deal in paper and pens. But the primitive signification of the term is still preserved in our ‘ Stationers’ Hall.’ It is said to have had its origin in the fact of these official writers having, unlike travelling merchants, pedlars, and hawkers, a fixed place of business, a station or stance recognised by the authorities. The librarius was more akin to our bookseller, and it was his principal function to sell books on commission, or more commonly to lend them out. The circulating library was in fact a more ancient and more general institution than the business of bookselling. The stationer and librarius were in practice very often united in one person, just as publisher and bookseller and sometimes printer too are united with us. The stationer had recourse to the illuminator for the ornamentation of his books, the rubrics, the initial letters, paragraphs, etc. The work of the parchment-maker (paper was only just coming into use at our date) and the work of the bookbinder need no comment. But all these members of the book-trade were, as has been said, members of the university as much as the professors, masters, and scholars. No one but the university stationers could publicly deal with books in Paris, unless in the case of small tracts and pieces under the value of ten shillings; and these official stationers could only set up shop after having obtained letters, or a formal licence, from the university, and after BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 5 having solemnly taken oath to observe the prescribed regulations and to deal honestly. They were required to possess a certain practical knowledge of books and a good moral character. Then the ordinary stationer or librarius had to lay down a deposit or security of £100 ; and the four principal stationers, who had some jurisdic­ tion over the rest, no less than £200. This was partly a pledge of respectability and partly a convenient fund for the application of the fines to which they were subjected for misconduct. As members of the university, on the other hand, they had several privileges. They were subject to the university courts and not to the city magistrates. They were exempt from certain royal and municipal taxes, and from taking their turn on the city night-watches, and they were expected to take part on solemn occasions in the university processions to the Cathedral First marched the librarii, then the parch- ment-makers, then the stationers or writers, then the bookbinders, and lastly the illuminators. It must not, however, be supposed that the modern secular book-trade was entirely the creation of the universities. The universities simply absorbed the trade as soon as it came within their reach. In the earlier Middle Ages the manufacture and distribution of books was almost exclusively confined to the monks, though there were some private copyists and book-dealers who existed outside the monasteries. The first reference to a public dealer in books (publico mangone librorum) is perhaps an unfortunate one for the credit of the trade. It occurs in an indignant protest on the part of Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, against a shabby trick played upon him by one of the craft in Paris about the year 1170. The archdeacon, who was a great lawyer as well as a churchman, and above all a famous book-hunter, was frequently employed on foreign embassies by Henry n. of England; and when in Paris he would naturally betake himself to the bookstalls. One day he stumbled upon a number of valuable law books, which he much coveted. He agreed upon the price, paid down his money, but foolishly left the books with the intention of calling for them later on. Meanwhile in came his friend 6 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF the Provost of Saxeburgh. The provost’s eye fell upon the parcel, and he straightway broke the last of the commandments. The bookseller at first honestly de­ clared that the books were sold, but the provost raised his offer, outbid the archdeacon, and in the end carried off the prize, as Peter says, ‘ with violence.’ We may imagine the feelings of the archdeacon when on his return he found his precious law-books gone. The university was jealous of the dignity of these her officers. Books were something sacred and not to be put on a par with other material goods which men barter or sell. The stationer and his brethren could indeed hardly be regarded as ordinary tradesmen. They might, and occasionally did, join to their avocations the profession of advocate, notary, or even cleric, but they were for­ bidden to engage in any low or meaner trade ; and there is record (at a little later date) of one being punished for presuming to unite with his business the mean occupation of a coal merchant! But, as we shall afterwards see, there was a singular exception to this rule. Some of the trade regulations which these men swore to strictly observe appear to our modern eyes curious, if not unreasonable. But the one idea of the university was to protect the interests of the students, and to provide for them the necessary books at the cheapest possible rate. It was a subject of grave complaint that the stationers sometimes considered their own interests rather than those of the university. It may be worth while noticing here, by way of parenthesis, the connection of this earliest mediaeval reference to the public book-trade with the civil law. For it was perhaps the growing study of the civil law which more than any other literary development gave rise to the secular bookshop. The Pope had in fact forbidden the monks to transcribe works on civil law, as something alien to their religious calling, and dangerously attractive. Hence the lay or secular book-trade found its first opportunity and most profitable field in the litera­ ture of jurisprudence. Here also may be mentioned the earliest bookseller’s advertisement on record. It was issued by one ‘ Herneis BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 7 the Romancer,’ a hundred years before our time, that is, in the middle of the thirteenth century, and it has reference to a translation published by him of the funda­ mental work of Roman law, the Code of Justinian. It runs thus: ‘ Here is the Code in Romance [that is in French] and all the laws of the Code. Herneis the Romancer sells it, and anyone wishing to have such a book should come to him. His residence is in Paris in front of Notre Dame.’ But to return to our university. It was partly to prevent the sort of dealing which Peter of Blois so keenly resented, and more particularly to secure for themselves the first choice in the competition for books, that the universities made haste to capture the trade, and to make stationers and booksellers the honoured, though somewhat subservient, members of the academical body. So when a book issued from the stationer’s office, it had to be submitted to the university to see that it was complete and correct, and then to have its value taxed or assessed by the four principal stationers or others duly appointed for that office. The librarius, again, could not sell or even lend any book which was not so taxed. The price was marked on the book, and he was bound by his oath to sell it for no more. The price went to the seller or owner, and he must, if possible, be called in to witness the transfer of his book. The only profit to the tradesman was a commission which we should consider quite inadequate, I f per cent, if sold to a student of the university, and on a sale to an outsider. But then, there was the honour of walking in the university pro­ cessions ! The law was of course at times evaded, and even when no other money passed, the transaction was effected over a bottle of wine, or a supper at a tavern was thrown in. So statutes were enacted severely pro­ hibiting any pourboires or drink money. As the com­ mission on a sale to one who was not a member of the university was a little more profitable than a sale to a student, the librarius had also to make oath that he would not, in expectation of a better customer, hide a book or pretend he had it not in stock. If he wanted to buy in a book for himself, he was bound to post up the 8 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF title and price and owner’s name on the hall of the Dominican friars for four successive sermon-days. It is obvious that he could find no profit in buying in order to sell again, for he could only sell at the taxed price at which he had bought. But he would buy a book in order to lend it out, and there was a large business in this hiring of books—indeed, as has been said, it was the principal business of the librarii, since the poor students who could not afford to buy a text-book could more easily hire one, or club together with others to hire one for the session. The stationers, moreover, cut their volumes up into sections, and let out a sheet or two to one man, and other sheets to another. Some of their prospectuses or advertisement lists are still extant, giving the number of pence for which such and such pecice, or pieces of a work, could be borrowed. So strong, too, was the feeling on the part of the university in favour of granting every facility for the multiplication and use of books, that the stationer was bound, on receiving a proper guarantee, to lend any book in his stock to a student who might wish to take a copy of it for himself. What we now know as copyright was not even thought of. On the contrary, a man who made a correct copy of a good text was considered to perform as good a deed as the original author who conceived or dictated the work. He concurred in a public benefit, and was to be encouraged accordingly. At Bologna this law was carried still further. Any master or scholar known to possess a good copy was bound to lend it on demand, at least within his own rooms, in order that it might be tran­ scribed, or collated for the correction of inferior copies; otherwise he rendered himself liable to a fine of no less than £5. The system seems to have worked fairly well, and was substantially adopted in all the university towns of Europe, from Padua to Oxford. But though many things have changed since the fourteenth century, human nature remains much the same, and even in those days strikes were not unknown. Robert will tell you of a rebellion which occurred when he was a boy in 1316. On the 12th of June in that year the stationers were all BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 9 called up before the rector and officials of the university in order to solemnly renew their oaths to observe the regulations. After reading them aloud, the rector asked, 4 Will you swear anew in my presence and in that of the other delegates, to observe the present statutes and the preceding ones as if you had never taken the oath before ? ’ The greater number absolutely refused, and declared they would rather lose their offices. ‘Very well,’ said the rector, ‘you are deprived of your offices and your privileges. You will at once pay the king’s taxes and the municipal rates from which you have been hitherto exempt ’ ; and the members of the university are warned that they are forbidden to deal in any way with the non- juring stationers, and, that these may be the better known, here follow their names. Twenty-two of the strikers are then denounced. Among them I find no Scot, but there is one Irishman and two Englishmen. The university was all-powerful, and the boycott was successful. Most of the malcontents had returned to their allegiance before the following December. It would be very interesting to know all the details of their work and the prices charged. It is a subject hitherto too much neglected, though inedited materials for the inquiry exist in abundance.. The matter is, how­ ever, complicated by the great difficulty of determining the relative or purchasing value of money at the time. It can only be touched very lightly here. In France they then reckoned by livres, sous, and deniers, equivalent to our pounds, shillings, and pence. The sou, now a halfpenny, was then equivalent to a shilling, i.e. twenty sous went to a livre, or French pound; and though the value of a livre was subject to great changes, it was just at our date not far in intrinsic value from twenty-five francs, or an English pound. Its purchasing power is another question.1 It may help us a little if we bear in mind that a student paid for his food and tuition, ex­ clusive of lodging, etc., four or five shillings a week. Lodgings were in comparison marvellously cheap. You could get a large house of twelve rooms, a good cellar, and a little kitchen for £10 a year; another with five 1 Petit-Radel makes £1 then equal £3 now. 10 MANUFACTURE ANJD DISTRIBUTION OF rooms and a chamber above the kitchen for £6. On an average the rent of a single room came to £ l a year. The stationer and illuminator had his fixed charges, of which we have very full accounts in the records of the papal treasury recently made public. Parchment cost from a halfpenny to twopence a skin. The copyist reckoned by pecice or pieces: the normal piece consisted of eight pages with two columns in the page, sixty lines in each column, and thirty letters in the line. It was in fact a skin folded in a quarto sheet. The stationers were as fond of extras as a modern printer. Gold letters were threepence apiece; common paragraphs sixpence per hundred. But here is a little bill actually paid by Peter of Limoges, an excellent lover of books, who presented more than sixty volumes to his college library, and died in 1304. The bill is for a folio volume of 200 pages, called A Romance of the Four States, a volume which is still to be seen at Paris. I will read out the items: £ s. d. Parchment,. 0 8 8 Scriptura or ‘ com­ position,’ . 1 9 4 About ten per cent. It seems Correction, . 0 2 rather hard on Peter to have to 10{1 pay for the copyist’s correction. Illumination, 0 1 1 Binding, 0 1 5 Very moderate.

Total, . £2 3 4 1 Or, if we treble this sum, to get an approximation to present value, the book would cost £ 7 . But it is time to adjourn for some refreshment. Robert Scot will know where to take us. He would tell us the choice lay between some forty taverns fre­ quented by the English nation alone. How many more were patronised by the other nations or the students at large I do not know. The names of these restaurants have a modern sound. There was the Angel, the Swan, the Dolphin, the Cock, the Ship, the Black Head and the Golden Beard, the Salmon, the Turbot, and the Burgundy Arms. They were very noisy places, and here 1 Say = college fees for two months, or a student’s lodging for a couple o f years. BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 11 it was the custom for the young man who had passed a successful examination or taken his degree to regale his friends with a banquet. There was a current saying, hitting off in a Latin line the national characteristics displayed on these festive occasions: Cantat Normannus, bibit Anglicus, est Alemannus;—the Norman he sings, the Englishman drinks, and the German eats. As nothing is said specially of the Scot, it may be assumed that he did all three in moderation. But what, you may ask, has all this to do with the book-trade? Well, this. I was saying that to the rule which ordained that no stationer or bookseller should engage in any meaner occupation there appeared to be a singular exception. For it is certain that there were several sworn stationers, and the rest, who combined with their business that of tavern- keeper. In 1313 at least Robert le Fanier was both parchment-maker and tavern-keeper. Jehan le Sevre was bookbinder and tavern-keeper. The widow Thomasse, an illuminator, kept a tavern, and Nicholas the English­ man, a bookseller or librarius, also kept a tavern. It has been conjectured that the university favoured this un­ usual combination, as it enabled the authorities to obtain some indirect control over the taverns when kept by their own officers. The landlord, who was a sworn stationer, would be careful of his behaviour. And on other grounds I must say it is a combination which in these hard times for booksellers I would seriously recom­ mend to my friends in Princes Street. If they would accommodate their customers with the means of procur­ ing an attractive luncheon in a back parlour, it might, I think, pleasantly promote business. To one of these taverns then we go. But we cannot linger over our bill of fare. The landlord would certainly offer you some Jacobin tarts, a favourite confectionery of the Dominican friars, a bottle of vinum Portogallice, which we can quite understand, and vinum theologorum, ‘ theologians’ wine/ a beverage which I cannot identify. It may be, for all I know, whisky in disguise, but I am sure it must be excellent. But time presses and we must hasten on, up the Rue St. Jacques to the college of Sorbonne. This was the 12 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF first of the colleges of the university, founded by Robert of Sorbonne, the chaplain of the king St. Louis of France, for the maintenance of poor scholars in 1256. It deserves honourable mention, too, as the first home of the printing press in France. The library was built about thirty years after the foundation of the college. It sprang up like magic. Members of the community vied with each other in presenting or bequeathing books. Had not the Council of Paris in 1212 reminded religious persons that to lend books to poor scholars was an evangelical work of mercy ? The college obituary did not fail to record these pious benefactions, and the names of one hundred and sixty- six donors of books are preserved. Thus Arnulph of St. Omer gives seventeen volumes; Alan Penrith, an Englishman, prior of Sorbonne in 1318, gives many more. Bernier de Nivella gives twenty-five volumes valued at £50, and so on until 1338, when the total had mounted to 1722 volumes, and in that year Master John, to his great joy, completed his triple catalogue, including per­ haps the first methodical class catalogue which we possess. If any man deserved a monument, Master John deserved it. He has written nothing but a few lines of preface to his catalogues, but these lines show him to have been a devout, painstaking, and modest scholar. W e owe it to his diligence and care that we can even now name and describe every one of those seventeen hundred volumes, and almost see the very spot where each one lies. The library building was erected a little apart from the rest of the college buildings for greater safety from fire. It consisted of two rooms, the large library and the little library. W e will go into the large room first. It is a long narrow hall, 120 feet by 36 feet—16 feet longer than the lower hall of the Signet Library, and 7 feet less in breadth. Each side is pierced by nineteen windows, looking east and west It is furnished with twenty-six long desks, five feet high (so that a reader seated could not see over them), stretched across the room at short intervals with just space enough to pass between them. These desks were marked with the letters of the alphabet A to Z, and then AB, AC, and, the last against the wall, AD. The books were placed BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 13 upon these desks and there chained, about a dozen on each desk and three hundred and thirty in all; for this room was called the large library not on account of the number of the volumes, but their importance. They were selected books, the chief authorities on every sub­ ject, and chained, as they were to be accessible to the whole community at all times. With that spirit of com­ munism which we find so often making itself felt in the Middle Ages, the statutes declare Bonum commune divinizes est quam bonum unius,— the common good is more divine than the good of the individual; and therefore the librarian is ordered to take care that the best book on any subject in the house, even if it be the only book, should be chained that all may see it. The chain was fixed to the right-hand cover of the book, and probably, as elsewhere, attached at the other end by a ring to a rod which passed along the front of the desk, so that the reader could to some extent move his book along the desk. But no one could remove a volume to a more comfortable corner and there fall asleep over it, as sometimes happens in the best regulated of our public libraries. The small library contained 1420 volumes. These were duplicates, or books of inferior value, or generally books suitable for circulation. Now a word about Master John’s catalogues. First we have the shelf-list or inventory of the chained library already referred to. But these bulky tomes often con­ tained within a single cover several treatises by different authors and on quite different subjects, say some book on grammar bound up with a treatise of St. Augustine, a treatise on music, and the life of a saint. Moreover, these several pieces had no proper title to catch the eye, so it was difficult enough to find the book you wanted. John says that pondering on these things he resolved to compile his classified catalogue of the large library. He divided it into forty-seven sections. He begins with grammar, rhetoric, or logic, then passes to arithmetic, astronomy, music, alchemy, geometry, and medicine. Then comes theology—first the sacred texts, concord­ ances, and commentaries; then the Originalia—that is, the works of the great Father, of the Church, followed by 14 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF moderns. The weakest point is, as we might suppose, history. Here under a single heading are grouped chronicles, miracles, and the sibylline verses. There are not half a dozen French books in the whole library. The cata­ logue ends with jurisprudence and sermons. The great volumes are thus, as it were, cut up into their component parts, and these are distributed over their proper classes. To each entry is attached its press-mark, that is the capital letter designating the desk on which it lies, and a small letter to denote the number on the desk. Thus, if you are looking for the grammatical treatise referred to, you would find it marked, let us say, B f, that is the sixth volume on the second desk. Look again down the subject headed music and you will there again find B f, the musical treatise bound up in the same volume. A more thoroughly practical or complete catalogue could not be named. But this so far only regards the large library. The lending library was also fully catalogued under fifty-nine headings somewhat differently divided. Here Scripture stands at the beginning. The peculiarity of the catalogue is that, to avoid any possible confusion between two copies of the same book, the first words of the second folio and of the penultimate folio are always given, the donor’s name is generally given, and the price always. Where have we such a catalogue now ? Master John also took some pains to discover the authorship of anonymous publications. When he comes to the sermons he says, ‘ I have set down the authors’ names where I could ascertain them, but if any reader is able to add others let him do so.’ More than this, if you asked for a book which by ill fortune was not in the Sorbonne, the librarian was able to say: ‘ W e have it not, but you will find a copy round the corner at St. Victor’s or at St. Germains des Pr£s.* For besides his three catalogues Master John had provided himself with a list of books not in the Sorbonne, but accessible in the neighbouring libraries, and this is a step in library civili­ sation which we have hardly attained on the brink of the twentieth century. This leads to a question which must be rising to your lips. Were these libraries in any true sense of the word BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 15 public libraries ? and the answer of those most competent to judge is decidedly in the affirmative. The man from the street could not walk in without challenge, but the bona fide student would have no difficulty, under certain restrictions, of gaining access to them;: The old library belonging to the cathedral was virtually a public library. A large number of books kept there were indeed pre­ sented by an English dignitary of the Church, not to the chapter for the use of poor scholars in Paris, but directly to the poor scholars themselves, the cathedral chapter being merely the trustees. So in the case of the Sor- bonne, though the books were the private property of the college, it was well understood that they were there for the benefit at least of all theological students. Several donors especially destined their gifts for the use of poor scholars generally, and not for members of the Sorbonne only. Thus Gueroul of Abbeville bequeathed about three hundred volumes for all secular students of theology in Paris. Other collections were bequeathed for the use of the natives of particular provinces, as for the use of Flemish students, for the use of men from the diocese of Amiens, etc. An entire stranger could be admitted to the library when introduced by a member of the community, but if he wished to borrow a book he must deposit a pledge of equal value in its place. There is, moreover, abundant evidence of the liberality with which one collegiate or monastic library lent out books to the members of another. Now about the books themselves. If we were to begin to examine these venerable tomes one by one, our visit would last a month instead of an hour, and we should find stuff enough for a dozen lectures. Let us then confine our attention for the moment to a single book, the book we all know something of and are in­ terested in, the Bible. W e have all in our youth been edified by the touching story of how the young monk Luther one day in his monastery at Erfurt came across a chained copy of the Bible, and there, to his surprise and delight, found whole chapters, whole books, instead of the mere scraps of epistles and gospels read in the breviary, and which, he had hitherto believed, constituted the 16 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF entire scriptures. Only quite recently I learned that this story is still current in authoritative quarters, and is used to show how rare or unknown a book, even to intelligent monks and theological students, the Bible was before the Reformation. It may be, then, of some interest to you to ask Master John to show you any fragments of the Bible he may possess in the Sorbonne, this stronghold of popish theology. As Master John is no prophet he can­ not, of course, have foreseen the great discovery of Luther* and he may be a little astonished at your question. He will remind you that the Bible, called in his time the Bibliotheca, as if it were a library in itself, is a very large book, or rather many books in one, and that it was a costly work to produce by the pen when every letter had to be written separately on vellum. A great authority, M. Chassant, declares that it took two years to make such a copy. This may be too high an estimate if it refers to ordinary copies, yet the cheaper Bibles cost in money of that day £4 or £5, and the finer ones ten times as much. Yet Master John will tell you that as it was a book which both masters and students would need to consult constantly, they kept four copies chained in the large library. But then, it was a book very much in request by borrowers. This demand the college thought sufficiently satisfied by placing in the small or lending library forty-one copies of the entire scriptures. But besides this he will show you two very fine copies of the New Testament and one of the Old, and two Bibles in verse, a rather favourite reading of the time. Then he will show you nineteen Concordances (I doubt if all the public libraries in Edinburgh have as many), twenty-four Bible Histories (an abridgment and paraphrase of the Bible) by Peter Comestor, a very popular work in the schools; and 293 separate portions of the Bible, such as the gospels or epistles, pentateuch or prophets, with brief notes. What did the whole library cost ? I have not esti­ mated the value of the entire collection as it stood in 1345, but fifty years earlier, when the number of volumes was only one thousand and seventeen, the total value is set down at £3812, 10s. 8d., i.e. on an average about BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 17 £3, 15s. apiece. But the forty-one Bibles of the lending library vary in price from £4 to £30, apd give an average of £11,10s. each. We can compare these with the prices of the Latin classics. The Sorbonne .was essentially a theological body and an austere body. The fellows did not care for fine copies and costly bindings in any case, and their classics were probably rather neglected. They bought the works of Virgil for 4s., an iEneid for 3s., Ovid’s Metamorphoses for 12s., a Juvenal and a Terence for 3s. The cheapest volume in their catalogue is a juvenile grammar for 6d. A cynical person may suggest that after all these books, or at least the Bibles, were seldom read. They may have been placed there by well-intentioned bene­ factors, and retained rather for ostentation than for use. Well, they had no newspapers to record the daily visitors to the library, or the proportion of fiction in use—the Sorbonne, by the way, had only four novels in the whole library—but fortunately we can tell in a general way the amount of borrowing which went on from the small i library. The librarians were always careful to keep registers of the books lent out, with the name of the borrower and the description and price of the book. You will see from the scrolls in the hand of Master John : that when the borrower returned some volumes with the i intention of soon taking them out again, the books were 1 not replaced on the shelves, but placed in a sack or bag set apart for the individual borrower, and in this bag was placed a ticket or scroll giving a receipt, as it were, ; for the books in the bag, and intimating what others were s still standing to the borrower’s name. A number of these scrolls have survived, and give us a pretty good idea of t the sort of books and the quantity continually taken out. The loans, by the way, were sometimes for a very long ; period. Books were few, and consequently men read slowly and digested their reading leisurely. In the older monastic days there was a custom of letting the monks choose at the beginning of a year a book for their reading for the next twelve months. They were expected to read their book through and to give some account of it. This monastic custom of long loans no doubt became 18 MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF a tradition, which passed over to the more modem university colleges. In some few cases, indeed, at the Sorbonne, certain professors appear to have had books out for half a lifetime. It is curious to read these old library scrolls of borrowed books. I notice seven Bibles taken out, of the value of £87. Sometimes twenty or more volumes of all kinds are appropriated by one man. Two or three Bibles are more than once borrowed by a single individual, together with concordances and commentaries, as if he were making a critical comparison of texts. The librarian regularly marks off his list with such entries as, ‘ in sacco,’ ‘ in the bag ’ ; or, ‘ reddidit omnes,’ ‘ has returned them all *; ‘ reliability t had them out again *; and occasionally we detect a borrower passing on a book to a friend,—for example, Master John Pape took out a> couple of Bibles, some sermons and commentaries, and the librarian jots down, * Returned them all, and they are: in his bag, except the Bible which Mr. Philip Scot has.’ It is clear that the Bible was not out of favour in the Sorbonne in the fourteenth century. Although the greater part of the library came from donations and bequests, some books were purchased out of the college funds. A more curious custom was that of lending money on books. A scholar in difficulties would bring a valu­ able book to the college and leave it in deposit for a loan —pawn it, in fact—and it seems that meanwhile the college had some practical use of the volume. In our very year, 1345, a volume of civil law which had once belonged to a John Douglas was pledged to the Sorbonne by Master William Scot (you see we cannot escape the Scots) for £8 of Paris money. There is one other little incident, with quite a modern touch, which must not be passed over. The librarian was occasionally ordered to* dispose of duplicates and books of little value, and what were these last ? Reportationes, notebooks of students— that is quite intelligible—and ‘ old sermons.* Fancy old sermons in the fourteenth century being treated as rubbish ! Another time, at the end of the thirteenth century, perhaps before Master John was born, a costly Breviary presented to the library was sold, and with the proceeds were purchased—now we shall see what books BOOKS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 19 the college when left to itself most coveted— I say, with the proceeds of the sale were purchased two Bibles at £16 each, and a Bible history worth £3. But daylight is past and our little foreign expedition is over. Nothing remains for us but to make our bow and grateful acknowledgments to that prince of mediaeval librarians, the venerable Master John, who, if he had sur­ vived to 1895, would be about six hundred years of age. W e owe it (as I have said) to his marvellously minute care and affection for all that related to his sanctuary of books, his sacer et augustus locus, that we are now able after this lapse of centuries to almost see his library, his volumes, his readers, and even himself, as if all had been untouched since the day he penned his catalogue. Only one other word. I began by saying that we would go to Paris, because it was there that the Scottish student mainly went for books and learning. But though that is the truth, it is not, I confess, all the truth. The fact is that if I confined myself to what I know of the history of books and the book-trade in Scotland, I should have had literally nothing to say. There is not very much, it appears, to be learned about the trade in England, but as to the manufacture and distribution of books in Scotland in the fourteenth century, I not only know nothing myself, but I don’t know as yet any one who does, or from what sources the desired information can be derived. There is record of a few volumes in the sacristy of Coldingham, there are seventeen volumes said to have belonged to the Culdees at St. Andrews at an older date, and there were three or four shelves full of books at Glasgow in the fifteenth century. So here is an insufficiently cultivated yet most inviting field of research for some enterprising young scholar. There are, I hope, many of our historical students who are less interested in the campaigns of generals or the intrigues of princes, than in the social and intellectual life of the people, how they worked, what they read, and what they thought. I re­ commend, then, as a profitable subject for a lecture, 4 The manufacture and distribution of books in Scotland during the fourteenth century,’ and I should be highly gratified if I were honoured with an invitation to hear it. BIBLICAL STUDIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES1

In April 1885 the Marquess of Bute read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, a paper in which he described and translated a curious Latin manuscript of the fourteenth century, entitled Passio Scotorum Perju- ratorum. It was, in fact, a comic and satirical history of the events of 1306, in the form of a parody on Scripture. The satire was bitter enough, but more remarkable was the authors ingenious, if irreverent, use of Biblical phraseology taken largely from the Books of Judges and Kings, the Gospels, and in particular the narrative of the Passion. Lord Bute, on apparently good grounds, assigned the composition to the early part of the year 1307. In the discussion which followed the reading of the paper, a learned divine expressed his doubts of the proposed date solely for the reason that such familiarity with Scripture as is here exhibited would be in contra­ diction to all our well established beliefs regarding the universal ignorance and neglect of the Bible in the Middle Ages. If Lord Bute’s manuscript was strange and instructive, the criticism upon it was no less so. The myth that Luther one day discovered the lost Bible in the cloister of Erfurt, has evidently in some quarters survived the blow given to it by Dr. Maitland’s Dark Ages. If, indeed, it were shown that every man who took a Doctor’s degree must have gone through a course of Biblical study at the university, that nearly all the chief masters of theology had written commentaries on Scrip­ ture, that throughout the Middle Ages there were learned men specially devoted to exegesis, that they compiled correctoria for the emendation of the text, scholia and glosses, concordances, harmonies and histories of the Bible, and that the sermons of mediaeval preachers were 1 The Scottish Review, January 1893. 20 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 21 often so saturated with Biblical phrases that their dis­ courses resembled in all, except its profanity, the Passio of the manuscript referred to—it might yet be urged that these men were so fettered by .false methods of interpretation that they could have no intelligent under­ standing of what they read, while the humanists and reformers by clearing away the cobwebs of allegory and mysticism which obscured its true sense, made a rational treatment of Scripture for the first time possible, and so may yet fairly be said to have ‘ discovered the Bible.’ For a position such as this there is no doubt some solid ground. It is, however, one thing to say that the Bible in the Middle Ages was not read, and quite another to say that it was read, perhaps much read, but to no good purpose. Even so, it needs to be more precisely determined in what manner or from what cause the study and the understanding of the Bible were defective. It may be remarked at the outset, that if some prevalent notions as to the kind of neglect into which the study of the Bible had fallen in those days are much exaggerated, the exaggeration is due as much to the rhetoric of Roman Catholic writers as to the prejudices of Protestants. It has already been pointed out, for example, in this Review,x how the Jesuit Maldonatus at Paris blamed in the severest language his predecessors, who in the long period of peace from the attacks of heretics had allowed their weapons to grow rusty, and when the real battle came found themselves unprepared to meet the enemy, so that ‘ even women did not scruple to say that they knew the Scriptures better than our most learned theologians.’ Undoubtedly the Reformation came at a moment when Biblical studies in the Roman Church were at an unusually low ebb. Humanism had burst upon Christendom with a flood of new learning, and with new methods of study. Some men were carried away with it so far as to imperil their orthodoxy. Timid and old-fashioned scholars were afraid to touch it. Few were able to assimilate the new learning without prejudice to their faith. The majority held back, and for the first 1 See below, p. 133. 22 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN time the leaders of orthodox learning within the Roman Church were not abreast of the best knowledge and best methods of their day. Hence the catastrophe. Old men like Cardinal Cajetan, disgusted and ashamed, went back to their Bibles and began to learn their Hebrew grammar. Young men of the rising generation, like Maldonatus, zealously set to work to reform the whole curriculum of ecclesiastical study. Meanwhile the lazy and illiterate had found an excuse for their indifference by confounding orthodoxy with ignorance, and played into the hands of their opponents. ‘ Priests having the cure of souls,’ wrote Archibald Hay to Cardinal Beaton, in 1540, ‘ used even to boast that they did not know a word of the New Testament, and uttered threats against others who dared to make it a study.’ Stories of this sort abound in every quarter. It is said that Erasmus when he first lighted upon a copy of the once popular ‘ Mammotrectus ’ burst into loud laughter; and well he might if the 4 Mammotrectus ’ fairly represented the Biblical knowledge of the time. The book was a sort of grammatical analysis of the Vulgate, compiled by the Franciscan friar, John Marchesinus, about 1466, for the use of poor and illiterate priests to whom Latin was a difficulty. There must have been many of these illiterate priests, and if the Scottish Council of 1551 had to decree that parish priests should carefully prepare and rehearse the reading of the new vernacular Catechism, lest they should move the congregation to derision by their faulty pronunciation, it is not surprising that such men should stand in need of some elementary help before they could correctly read or translate a verse of the Vulgate. Marchesinus was, as he declares, ‘im­ patient with his own unskilfulness, and compassionate towards the rudeness of poor clerics promoted to the office of preaching,’ and therefore wrote with the view of ‘ edifying their understanding with etymology.’ The ‘ Mammotrectus ’ was indeed food for babes. But before Erasmus saw a copy it had gone through at least nine­ teen editions. The following is a specimen. It must be observed that Marchesinus denotes the gender of a noun by prefixing Me, hcec, or hoc, gives the termination of the THE MIDDLE AGES 23 genitive case, and is careful of his prosody and his deriva­ tions. Thus, Gen. i .:— ‘ Hcec abyssus-si, is the depth of waters; as it were, without byssus and whiteness, i.e. from a, which is without, and byssus, which is a kind of very white linen.’ Here is a verse on feminines in us :— 4 Haec paradisus,1 nardus, domus atque iacinthus.— H ie and hcec inanis, and hoc inane, i.e. empty, without fruit; the middle long. Thus a verse of Cato:— Hoc faciunt stulti quos gloria vexat inanis.’ The comparative decadence of Biblical learning in the century preceding the Reformation was due to various causes. The increased rage among divines for meta­ physical and logical disputations overshadowed exegesis; and the Sententiarii at the universities looked down upon the Theologi biblici as men engaged in an unintellectual pursuit. It is said too that the growing popularity of legal studies as being more profitable, and leading to rich fees and preferment, helped to edge out the Scriptural lectures. On the other hand, when scholastic theology itself became an object of derision to the men of the new learning, the older commentators shared in the contempt, for the scholastic method had in no small degree invaded the Biblical lecture; and the new philologist, discarding alike the ways of the allegorist and the schoolman, insisted that no one could make anything of the Bible who did not know Hebrew and Greek. Thus the ignor­ ance of the illiterate, the pedantry of the scholastic, the conceit of the humanist, even the new-born learning of the later Jesuit, all conspired with the revolutionary zeal of the Protestant reformer to hand down the tradition that the light of the Bible before his time was virtually tinder an eclipse. The questions then which demand answers, from an historical point of view, are these:—In what light was the Bible regarded, and to what use was it put, in the Middle Ages ? By what methods was it studied ? Are there any clearly marked stages in the history of Biblical exegesis within the Roman Church? It is the aim of the presentvarticle to suggest answers to these questions, and, in particular, to give specimens from the standard

1 Note the double false quantity, corrected in some editions by the insertion of habet after paradisus. 24 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN works which characterise the period or mark progress within it. It must of necessity, therefore, have some­ thing of a bibliographical character. First of all, it should be borne in mind that at the beginning of the age under discussion (1100-1517) the evolution of theology had passed into a new stage. The Bible for the mere making of dogma had apparently been threshed out. Tradition had finally fixed the interpreta­ tion of the several dogmatic texts. Peter Lombard collected them and handed them over to the Aristotelian, who, with the aid of logic and metaphysics, proceeded to build up a science of speculative or scholastic theology. It is on this account that the Benedictine editors of the Histoire Litter aire de France—always somewhat hostile to scholasticism—attribute the ultimate source of the subsequent decay of original Biblical research to the Master of the Sentences. But the Bible was, to a mediaeval Catholic, something more than the source of dogma. It was, in the phrase of Gregory the Great, the Epistola Dei ad creaturam. It was the living word by which the devout reader was brought into the closest union with the divine mind. Its highest end was not intellectual but moral. It was the spiritual food and nourishment of the pious. The reader was taught to penetrate beneath the outer shell. Hugh of St. Victor speaks of ‘the sacred page whose every particle is full of divine sacraments/ and adds, ‘the philosopher knows only the signification of words—more excellent is the knowledge of things.’ Thus the elucida­ tion of the Bible, if it slipped in some degree out of the hand of the dogmatic theologian, did not become less prized by the saint, the mystic, the master of the spiritual life, and the preacher.1 But the expositor had little means of getting at the secrets of the Bible, beyond the light of his inner con­ sciousness. Historical criticism as we understand it was unknown to him. Philology did not exist. The original languages of the text were long forgotten in the W est; and although the commentator was, in his own way,

1 See on this subject Diestel’s Geschichte des Alt. Test, in der christlichen Kirche. Jena, 1869 (pp. 177-188). THE MIDDLE AGES 25 eager in the search for the meaning of words as they stood in the Vulgate, his Latin etymologies were often grotesque. He had, however, for the purpose of edifica- ? tion, a method of his own which was inexhaustible ; and this was the theory of the manifold mystical sense. The main business of the golden age of scholasticism was the determining and systematising of the allegorical use of scripture, with the view of illustrating the idea that hidden under narrative and law, psalm and prophecy, Christ and His sacraments were to be found everywhere. The doctrine was of course not new. It was taken over from the Fathers, who in turn derived it from Christ and the Apostles, or from Philo and the Alexandrian Jews. It is founded on the belief that Providence so moved men’s wills and ordered the events of what is called sacred history, that the whole of the Old Testament becomes a parable or symbol of the New.1 St. Thomas thus formulates the doctrine :— ‘ The author of Scripture is God. It is in His power not only to accommodate words to signify things (which even man can do), but also to make things themselves significant. Thus, while in all sciences words have a meaning, it is peculiar to this science [of Scripture] that the things themselves signified by words should also in their turn signify something else. The primary signification, by which words signify things, belongs to the first sense, that is the literal or historical. The second signification, by which the things signified by the words again signify other things, is called the spiritual sense, and is founded upon the literal sense and presupposes it. ‘ This spiritual sense is threefold. When things of the Old Law point to things of the New, and show what is to be believed of Christ, we have the allegoric sense. But just as the Old Law is, according to the Apostle, the figure of the New, so, according to Dionysius, the facts of the New Law itself are figures of future glory. In as far as things done in Christ, or which signify Christ, are symbols of what we ought to do, they are the ground of the moral [or tropological] sense. In as far as these same facts point to eternal glory they constitute the ground of the anagogic sense.’ It is to be noted that the Angelic Doctor, replying to objections, argues that ‘this multiplicity of senses gives rise to no equivocation or confusion, for it is not intended that one word means many things, but that the thing,

1 c There is nothing-/ says Scotus, e in the New Testament which cannot be extracted from the Old in some sense/ 26 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN signified by the word, signifies other things ; and all these subsequent senses are founded upon the first, that is, the literal sense.’ He adds, however, the important caution that there is nothing necessary for the faith contained under the spiritual sense, which Scripture has not else­ where made manifest by the literal sense. Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Bonaventure, in fact the scholastics universally, give in substance the same definition and division—Bonaventure also insisting that the literal sense is the one and necessary foundation of the spiritual sense. Hugh of St. Victor—on this subject a very high authority—is most explicit, and sets forth this method of interpretation with much detail and many examples, in a truly scholastic fashion. W e have, he remarks, in view of this mystical sense, to take note of six circumstances,—Things, Persons, Number, Place, Time, Action.

1. The Thing may be twofold in its meaning. Thus snow, in its interior nature, indicates frigidity or extinction of lusts; in its outward form, i.e. whiteness, it signifies purity of works. 2. Persons. There are persons commemorated in Scripture whose lives and works are so disposed as to bear mystical significations. Thus Jacob, who received the inheritance of his father, may designate Christ or the Gentile people. Isaac who blesses his son may figure God, the Father. 3. Places have significance, inasmuch as the Lord has written that certain works shall be performed in particular places according to the meaning of the names. Thus the Israelites go down into Egypt on account of the famine, they are oppressed there with slavery, led thence by God into the desert, and after forty years come into the promised land, which is situated between Babylon and Egypt, etc. But all these things are full of meaning. Egypt, a voluptuous land flowing with delights, signifies the world and secular desires. The desert signifies the religious life through which, as it were, passing into another country, we fast from the vices of the world. Babylon is placed at the North, where there is perpetual cold and darkness, since that quarter is never touched by the sun. By the Assyrians are signified devils, who have chosen for themselves a seat at the North, torpid with the cold of infidelity and deprived of the light of the truth. The Egyptians first and then the Assyrians oppressed Israel, for the devil could do nothing against us unless we were first seduced by our concupiscences. Times have significance. For example, Jesus was in the porch of Solomon 6 and it was winter.’ Here mention is made of winter, that THE MIDDLE AGES 27 by the quality of the season may be indicated the quality of souls, that is the torpor— infidelity of the Jews. Action. Jesus came into Bethany and raised Lazarus. Bethany is the 6 house of obedience.’ Christ comes to the obedient only— to raise Lazarus, that is a soul previously dead in sin. Numbers may point to mystical signification in nine different ways, i.e. according to (1) the order of position, (£) quality of com­ position, (3) mode of extension, (4) form of disposition, (5) com­ putation, (6*) multiplicity, (7) aggregation of parts, (8) multitude, (9) exaggeration. Order o f position. Thus one, the first of the numerals, signifies the principle of all things : Two, which is the second numeral, and the first to recede from unity, signifies sin, which deviates from the first good.— Quality o f composition. Two, which is capable of dis­ section, signifies corruptible and transitory things; while Three, where unity intervenes in the middle, cannot be thus dissected into two equal parts, and so signifies incorruptible and indissoluble things.— Mode of extension. Seven, going beyond six, indicates rest after work ; Eight, extending beyond seven, Eternity after mutability. — Form o f disposition. Ten, which is extended lengthways, signifies rectitude of faith ; a Hundred expanded in breadth, amplitude of charity.— Computation o f number. Here Ten signifies perfection, because with it the extension of computation comes to an end.— Multiplicity. Twelve is the sign of universality, because the number is made up by the multiplication of three into four; and Four is the form of corporal things, and Three, of spiritual things.— Aggrega­ tion o fparts. Sioc is the form of perfection, because its parts, three, two, and one, added together make up the whole, neither going beyond nor stopping short of it; and this agrees with perfection, which is neither more nor less than what is j ust.— Multitude o fparts. Two, on account of the two unities, signifies love of God and love of one’s neighbour.— Exaggeration gives significance to a number when it needs to be multiplied or to be taken with some exaggera­ tion in order to correspond to the premises, as, for example, ‘ I will chastise you seven times more for your sins ’ (in Lev. xxvi. 18), where seven means many times. The same writer gives an example of the threefold mystical sense applied to a single passage.

6 There was in the land of Hus a man named Job, who from being a rich man fell into such misery, that sitting on a dunghill he was fain to scrape the sores of his body with a potsherd. The historical sense is clear. Let us come to the allegory, so that through the things signified by the words we may reflect that other things are again signified, and so learn through one fact to understand another. Job, then, whose name is interpreted “ Sorrowing,” signifies Christ, who from at first being equal to the Father in the riches of His 28 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN glory, came down to our wretchedness and sat humbled on the dunghill of the world, sharing in all our defects except sin. Let us next inquire what through this action (of Job’s) is to be done, that is, what this action indicates as worthy to be done. Job may signify some just man or penitent soul who forms in his memory a dunghill of all the sins he has committed; and, not for an hour, but persever- ingly, sitting and meditating upon this, ceases not to weep. And the literal facts which represent spiritual things of this kind are called mysteries (sacramenta).’ This system, then, was the natural inheritance of the scholastic period. To maintain, as Luther maintained, that we must not extend the number of types beyond those actually named in the New Testament, would have seemed to the scholastic mind as illogical and arbitrary as to say that we should not give credence to any miracles which do not happen to be mentioned in the Bible. As the miracles there recorded suggested to the ecclesiastical historian what he might expect to find in perhaps greater abundance in the lives of Christian saints and martyrs, so the allegory of the two sons of Abraham, which no one could have easily discovered if it had not been disclosed by the Apostle, was a sufficient hint to the mediaeval commentator that if he used his eyes, in the light of that analogy, he would discover a thousand similar mysteries. The thirteenth century opened with some promise for Biblical studies. The leaders of Christian thought, Lanfranc and Abelard, St. Bernard and Rupert of Deutz, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, had all in one way or another given a fresh impulse in this direction. It must not be forgotten that even the Master of the Sentences (1164) wrote commentaries on the Psalms and Pauline Epistles, while in the next century the most prominent scholastics, Alexander Hales, Albert the Great, Aquinas, Bonaventure, JEgidius Columna, by their various exegetical works left an example which was not neglected by their followers. But the standard model and authority in the schools of the thirteenth century was not a production of their own age, but an inheritance from an earlier period. This was the famous Glossa Ordinaria of Walafridus Strabo, a Benedictine monk of Fulda in the first half of the ninth century. It was the fashion of the schools to take one book in each science THE MIDDLE AGES 29 i as a standard text, and to invest it with pre-eminent i authority. What Aristotle’s Ethics was to the moralist, the Master of the Sentences to the dogmatic theologian, or Gratian’s Concordia to the decretalist; that the Glossa i was to the student of the Bible. Peter Lombard refers to it simply as ‘ Auctoritas.’ It was generally known as ‘ the tongue of Scripture.’ On what grounds it was so ! highly esteemed is not apparent. The name is mislead­ ing, for it is by no means short. It is in fact a selection made from the commentaries of the Fathers, and particu­ larly from those of Strabo’s own revered master, Bhabanus Maurus. The author’s name is generally, but not always, placed before the extract cited, and although Strabo professes to give the historical exposition as well as the mystical, the historical is often in itself allegorical. Sometimes more than one interpretation is offered, but as a rule a single one is selected, and that not always with the best judgment. In the twelfth century, Anselm, Dean of Laon, and a professor of theology at Paris, com­ posed a very much briefer Gloss, called the Inter linear is, as it was written in small letters between the lines of the larger text, while the Glossa Ordinaria occupied the margins of the page. They were commonly printed together, with the addition of the Postillse of Nicholas de Lyra—the whole work making six, or in some editions seven, thick folio volumes. Strabo’s comments on the various books are naturally unequal, being brief in the purely historical portions and expanding on any passages which give scope for allegory and ‘ moralities.’ The explanation of the first chapter of Genesis occupies many columns. A paragraph headed with the name of Jerome runs thus:— In principio . . . many think, with Tertullian and Hilary, that in the Hebrew it stands ‘ In the Son he made,’ etc. The L X X , indeed, and Symmachus and Theodotion, translated, ‘ In the beginn­ ing and in the Hebrew the word is Breschith, which Aquila inter­ prets 4in c a p i t i d o It should therefore be rather understood, both according to the sense and the translation, of Christ, who in the very front of Genesis (which is the head of all the books) and in the In principio of John is shown as the maker of heaven and earth; thus Ps. xxix., ‘ In the head of the book it is written of me,’ that is, in the beginning of Genesis. 30 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN The Interlinear Gloss has here more briefly, * In the beginning of time, or, before all things, or, in His Son, God created . . . heaven, spiritual men who meditate upon heavenly things, and earth, carnal men who have not put off the earthly man,’ etc. On the work of the second day Strabo asks why God did not, as in the case of other days, declare that it was good. He answers with St. Jerome that the omission was on account of the evil principle implied in the binary number, which first departs from unity and becomes a figure of bigamy and other reprehensible things (thus unclean animals entered the ark two by two, while the clean were represented by an odd number); or, because in this day’s work the division of waters was not yet completed. On the story of Cain and Abel, the Glossa remarks that the two brothers represent respectively the Jews and Christian people. Cain was a husbandman, i.e. devoted to earthly labours ; Abel, a shepherd, preferring the simplicity and innocence of sheep. The mark set upon Cain was the sign of circumcision and of carnal observance, which dis­ tinguishes the Jews from all other races. On the command to man crescite et multiplicamini, the Ordinaria observes that marriage thus instituted by the heavenly blessing is not to be condemned even though virginity should be preferred; and the Interlinearis on the following words, replete terram, ingeniously hints at a higher reference to virginity. ‘ Marriage fills the earth, virginity fills heaven.’ Nimrod, ‘ who, in defiance of nature, wished to penetrate to heaven, signifies the devil, who said, “ I will ascend above the stars of heaven.” It is added that, historically, according to Josephus, Nimrod, moved by cupidity and tyranny, took forcible possession of new kingdoms, and was the originator of the building of the tower intended to touch heaven. He began to be a mighty one, or, according to others, was the first giant.’ The popularity of Strabo’s Glossa is shown by the multitude of extant m s s . of the work, or of portions of it still extant, or which once existed in the public and private libraries of whose contents we have catalogues. No better proof can be given of the authority which it maintained in the schools than the use made of it by THE MIDDLE AGES 31 Aquinas, who seems to have had it at his elbow when writing his sermons. In a short discourse on the Good Samaritan, he quotes the Glossa Ordinaria, in support of his allegorical interpretations, seven times, and the Inter- linearis once.1 This, then, was the system of exegesis which the Schoolmen found in possession. It was the idea of these divines that the Word of God must be placed above the level of human language. The ordinary limitations of human speech could not confine the utterances of divine oracles. Indeed it was plainly asserted that if you regard the mere historical record there is much that is mean, trivial, and quite unworthy of the Divine Mind. The Mosaic legislation, for example, if taken in the literal sense, must be considered as inferior in dignity and wisdom to the laws of the Athenians or Spartans.2 Hence it became an axiom that, of the two senses, the mystical was the more worthy, the more profound, and the more difficult The literal sense concerns earthly and visible things, easy of comprehension, but which have value only as shadows of spiritual things. The mystical sense is that principally intended by the Holy Spirit One result of such a doctrine, notwithstanding the protests of grave authors, was the general neglect of the historical sense. The facts were uninteresting, unmean­ ing, unless they could be made directly subservient to theology or mysticism. Hugh of St. Victor, even at that early age, has to complain of those who jumped to the allegory without reference to the letter. ‘ I wonder with what effrontery’ (he asks) ‘ certain men boast of being teachers of allegories, men who are ignorant of the very first meaning of the letter 1 ’ Yet the best commentators seemed impatient of historical allusions, as so many impediments in their way. This is especially the case with the Psalms. Albertus Magnus, for example, even while he states the facts, passes on hurriedly to the mystical sense as something more real and, in a manner, more true. Thus treating of Psalm iii., he admits that the title ‘ Psalmus David’ on the surface (secundum

1 Opera, ed. Paris, 1660, tom. xvii. p. 745. 2 Sixtus Senensis, vol. iii. p. 131. 32 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN superfidem) appears to indicate the efficient cause of the psalm and the occasion on which it was written, but adds ‘ more truly * (verius), according to the spiritual under­ standing, the matter of the psalm is shown to be Christ. The venerable Richard Rolle (d. 1349) never even dreams of David in connection with the Psalter. ‘ The matere of this boke,’ he says plainly, ‘ is Crist and his Spouse that is haly kyrke, or ilk ryghtwise mannys saule ’ ; and it is not to be expected that when lie touches on the 19th verse of the Miserere, he should stop to inquire what were these ‘ walls of Jerusalem ’ that the psalmist prays may be built up. The city of David, or the buildings of Ezra or Nehemiah, do not enter into his mind : ‘ Well do, Lord, in Thy good will to Syon, that edified be the walls of Jerusalem, that is, Send Thy Son into our hearts . . . and the walls of Jerusalem that were destroyed by Adam be edified through Christ.’ 1 On the other hand, this method in practice led to some profitable results. It demanded familiarity with the whole text of the Bible. For the test of the validity of an allegorical interpretation was the test of supposed Biblical analogy. Bonaventure, explaining this rule, takes for an example the words apprehende arma et scutum, and asks, What is the divine ‘ shield ’ ? He answers ‘ truth and goodwill,’ for elsewhere it is written ‘ scuto bonae voluntatis,’ and again ‘ scuto circumdabit veritas ejus,’ and adds significantly that ‘ to such an exercise no one can easily attain, unless by habitual read­ ing he were to commit the text and letter of the Bible to memory.’ Of many a mediaeval doctor it might be said —as it was said of Heinrich Ewald’s Hebrew—that he knew his Bible so well that he could play with it. Another practical result was the close attention necessarily paid to the purity of the text, where every syllable might contain a mystery. Hidden meanings were especially apt, too, to lurk under proper names and technical terms of foreign origin. It was needful, there­ fore, to possess a key to their right interpretation. Hence the Correctoria and Glossaries, on which a word must now be said.

1 Ed. H. R. Bramley, Oxford, 1884. THE MIDDLE AGES 83 A t the beginning of the thirteenth century many attempts were made, especially in France, to revise the text of the Vulgate, which from various causes,v notably from interpolations and well-intentioned corrections introduced from the pre-Hieronymian text or from the writings of the Fathers, had again become corrupt, not­ withstanding the efforts of Alcuin and Lanfranc to keep it pure. The first important work of the kind was the Bible of Stephen Harding, abbot of Citeaux, which is now preserved in four folio volumes in the public library of Dijon. Stephen consulted learned Jews, and got them to compare their Bibles with his copy, and freely made erasures of what appeared to be superfluous in the Latin. His second volume is dated 1109. Early in the same century there appear several works, having a similar object, named Correctoria—lists of common errors with proposed emendations. The chief of these was the Correctorium of the Paris University, evidently intended to be a standard authority to which other copies should be conformed, but known to us chiefly through the censures of Roger Bacon. The different religious orders seem soon to have possessed Correctoria of their own ; and there were others compiled either as supplementary to, or in correction of, that of Paris. There are about thirty m s s . of these still extant. Several were made use of by the Sixtine correctors of the Vulgate at the end of the sixteenth century. One of the best known is the correc­ torium of the well-known Biblical commentator and the compiler of the first Concordance, Hugh of Santa Cara (St. Cher), who has explained his method in a long and interesting preface.1 The Paris Correctorium contained the divisions into chapters, such as are now marked in our Bible. These are generally attributed to another famous expositor, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, a Cardinal (d. 1228), who is said to have invented them when he lectured at Paris.2 Of the numerous scholia, glossaries, or vocabularies compiled in this period the glossary drawn up by Robert 1 Printed by Denifle in his article on the Manuscripts of the Correctoria in the Archivfur Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, iv. 263. * The^ Correctorium of a Dominican, Magdalius Jacobus, was printed at Cologne in 1508, but it is very rare. 34 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN of Sorbonne in the thirteenth century, and printed by the Jesuit Tournemine in his supplement to the commentary of Bonfrerius (3 vols. fol., Venice, 1758), may be taken as a fair specimen. It is intended to explain difficult words and phrases, names of places or of minerals, words of foreign derivation, etc. It is not long, there being no more than fifty such words in Genesis and as many in Exodus thus explained. The derivations of common Latin words are often curious. Sometimes more than one is offered, or rather, two are combined in one, for a single word. Thus coluber is so called because this snake colit umbras et in lubricos tractus labitur. Viper a, because the female of this species vi parit, and the male vi perit9 involving a remarkable piece of natural history, which is more fully explained in the Mammotrectus (on Matt. iii. 7). Silex is a hard rock, so called because from it exsilit ignis. Three different interpretations are offered for the crux in 1 Kings ix. 1, where in the Vulgate Saul is said to have been one year old, jilius unias anni, when he reigned over Israel, etc.; and the exceedingly difficult passage* Ps. lxxvi. 14, Si dormiatis, inter medios cleros, etc., is elucidated with a characteristically mystical interpretation* The cleri are the two testaments; the silvered dove signifies the Church ; and her hind parts, that is, her last end, after she has departed from this earth, will shine with grace like gold. But while the Glossa of Strabo remained a model and an authority, while mystical interpretations held their ground, and scholia, glossaries, and postillse multiplied without end, the schools of theology initiated some new methods of their own which were the outcome of the University lectures. At the University of Paris (which gave the pattern, followed more or less closely by the others) the course of studies in the faculty of theology, in preparation for the doctor’s degree (which occupied, in the time of Robert de Cour^on, eight years), was in the begin* ning of the fourteenth century extended to fourteen years. During the first four years the young scholar studied the text of the Bible and the Master of the Sentences. The bachelors, who must have passed six years in study, were divided into three classes, Biblici ordinarii and cursored THE MIDDLE AGES 35 the sententiarii and the formati. The Biblici read lectures on the Bible for three years. The friars lectured on the text seriatim. The cur sores chose two. books, one from the Old and the other from the New Testament. Before any one was admitted to lecture on the Sentences, proof must be given of his having studied theology for nine years and having delivered two courses on the Bible Even for a Doctor’s degree in civil or canon law the candidate must have attended lectures for at least two years. The method of exposition in the classes was that followed in all other sciences. The distinctive character of the teaching of the Middle Ages, says M. Thurot,1 was that they did not teach science directly in itself, but only by explanation of a book. Thus Ethics were taught by an exposition of Aristotle. The author’s text was either interpretated by way of verbal Exposition, or discussed in a series of Questions. The method of Exposition was always the same. The commentator in a prologue, as a rule, treats of the material, formal, final, and efficient causes of his work, and indicates its proper divisions. He takes the first division, sub-divides it, and in its turn sub­ divides the first member of the sub-division, and so on until he arrives at a division which embraces the first chapter only. He now applies to the single chapters the process which he had applied to the book as a whole, until he reaches a single idea or phrase. This he exhausts by analysis and paraphrase, and does not pass to the next clause until he has analysed the reasons by which that clause occupies the place that it does. In the Questions, the lecturer extracts from the text all such matter as is capable of being thrown into the form of questions, and of being discussed in two contrary senses. He propounds the question, enumerates the reasons for answering it in this way and in that, gives his decision in favour of one, and replies to the arguments on the other side. A familiar example of the method of the Questionarii will be found in John Major’s Commentary on Matthew, ‘ with 308 doubts and difficulties, very much

1 De torganisation de Tenseignement dans Tuniversite de Paris aumoyenage, par Charles Thurot (Paris 1850), pp. 133-141. 36 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN conducing to its elucidation.’ A more thorough and complete commentary of the kind was that of Tostatus, Bishop of Avila, stupor mundi, of whom more here­ after. A model of the purely scholastic Exposition is to be found in St. Thomas’s Commentary on St. Paul. Here the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is treated in eight lectures. The first verse occupies a lecture by itself, which begins thus :— This epistle is divided into two parts, viz. the salutation, and the epistolary treatise, which begins Primum quidem (v. 8). As to the first division, it does three things: 1. describes the person saluting; 2. the person saluted, omnibus qui sunt Romos % S. the salutation desired, gratia vobis. In regard to the first, there are two points. For, first, there is described the person of the author; secondly, his office is commended: quod ante prcmiserat, etc. The person of the author is described in four points. First indeed by his name, when he said Paulus. About which three things are to be considered. First its propriety.— For this name, so far as its expression by these letters of the alphabet is concerned, cannot be Hebrew, for with the Hebrews the element P is not found. But it may be Greek and Latin. If, however, some alphabetical charac­ ter approximate to it may be assumed, then that which is here written P may indeed be Hebrew. Secondly its signification.— As far, then, as it may be Hebrew it is the same as wonderful or elect [he is thinking of the verb Pala]. But according to the Greek it is quiet, according to the Latin it is little. And these things are suitable to him. For he was elect in the matter of grace. Hence, Acts ix., Vas electionis est mihi. He was wonderful in works. Eccles. xliii., Vas admirabile opus excelsi. He was quiet in con­ templation, Wisd. viii., Intrans in domum meam conquiescam cum illo. He was little through humility, 1 Cor. xv., Ego autem sum minimus apostolorum. Thirdly, it is to be considered when this name was imposed on the apostle, since he was previously called Saul. About this there are three opinions. Jerome says he wished to be called Paul on account of some notable action done by him; that is, because he converted Sergius Paulus, the proconsul, just as Scipio is called Africanus because he conquered Africa. Others, however, say that the name was imposed on account of his pro­ ficiency in virtue, which, as has been said, is signified by the name. For there have been names divinely bestowed upon certain persons from the moment of their birth, to designate grace which they obtained from the beginning, as was evidently the case with John Baptist. In some cases, however, names are changed in order to indicate progress in virtue, as Chrysostom says. This is clear with Abraham (Gen. xvii.) and with Peter (Matt. xvi.). Others, how­ THE MIDDLE AGES 37 ever, say, and this is the better account, that Paul had from the beginning two names. . . . Secondly, the person of the writer is described according to his condition, as in the words servus Christi. It would seem that the condition of servitude is an abject one, if regarded absolutely. Hence it is a penalty inflicted by a curse on account of sin (Gen. ix.), Maledictus Canaan servus servorum, etc. But it is rendered com­ mendable when you hear Jem Christi, for Jesus is interpreted Saviour. . . . Christus is interpreted anointed. By this is desig­ nated the dignity of Christ both in respect to holiness, inasmuch as priests are anointed (Exod. xxviii.), and in respect to power, because kings are also anointed (3 Kings i.), and in respect to knowledge, because prophets also were anointed as Eliseus (3 Kings xix.). Scotus wrote similar commentaries, and Sixtus Sen- ensis, who left the Franciscans by leave of the Pope to become a Dominican, read for a printer an exposition of the Subtle Doctor on the Epistle to the Romans. He pronounces it ‘ very erudite and profound, but, according to the name of the author, Skoteinos, so dark and obscure that those well versed in his school can scarce make their way through it.’ The scholastic exposition was, however, not confined to argumentative treatises such as the Pauline Epistles. It was freely applied to any part of the Bible and even to the Psalter. Albertus Magnus showed his skill in making David define his terms like another Aristotle. Hugh of St. Victor expounds a Psalm as if every word formed part of a logical thesis.1 Thus the first verse of Ps. xvii. propounds in four successive points the motives of our love of God, and exhibits in as many steps the order in which evil is expelled : thus ‘ Deliverer by baptism; Refuge by penance; Firmament by patience; Fortitude by victory.’ The second verse, in five points, demonstrates how good is to be acquired, and so on. Sixtus Senensis (Bibliotheca, ed. Colon, p. 183) gives a curious specimen of such a scholastic lecture on the shortest of the Psalms (cxvi.), JLaudate JDominum, omnes gentes9 but unfortunately he does not name the author. The commentator takes St. Paul’s quotation from Isaiah, ‘ a short word shall the Lord make upon the earth,’

1 Some good examples may be seen in Elster: De medii esvi theologia exegetica. 38 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN Rom. ix. 28, and proceeds to use this text as a key to the psalm. ‘ In this sentence of Isaiah the four causes of this psalm are touched, viz. the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. The material is insinuated by the verbum, because the matter, here treated of, is the mercy and truth of God, exhibited in the Word Incarnate. The form al cause is touched in the phrase abbreviatum, because the form of this psalm is compendious brevity, comprehend­ ing all the divine praises which are scattered throughout the whole book. The agent is indicated in the words fecit dominus, for God is the efficient cause who made this psalm by the mouth of David. The final cause is touched in the words super terram, for the end which moved God to send the Incarnate Word and to utter this psalm was the utility of the whole world. ‘ The present psalm, after the manner of other psalms, is divided into two parts, viz. the Title, and the Tractate which begins Laudate Domlnum, etc. The Title is Alleluia, by which it is shown that this psalm is Jialleluiaticus, that is laudatory, inviting all the world to praise God for the mercy obtained in the advent of the Incarnate Word. In the Tractate the author carries out what he had proposed in the title, and it is divided into two parts. In the first, it invites all men to praise God; and in the second, it gives the reason of this invitation, qtwniam confirmata. The first part, again, is divided into two. But here arises a difficulty, Whether God is to be praised ? And it seems not. For the Philosopher, in the first book of Ethics, says that for the best there should not be praise, but something more than praise. But God is above the very best of all things, therefore to God there is due not praise but something more than praise. Hence Ecclus. xliv. says that God is “ above all praise.” Sed contra est, quod hie dicitur, Laudate, etc.: Respondeo. . . This was the method most natural to the schoolman. He knew, too, no better way of getting at the substance of an author’s text; and as long as the fashion prevailed, and no more was expected of an interpreter than logical subtlety and imagination, a method so congenial to their intellectual tastes and habits attracted to Biblical ex­ egesis many theologians who otherwise might have re­ garded it as an exercise unworthy of their craft. It became, seemingly, a common practice for commentators on the Sentences to publish the lectures on Scripture which they had delivered during the course of apprentice­ ship for their Doctor’s degree. If it is plain to us that the thesis, the divisions, the arguments and definitions THE MIDDLE AGES 39 were rather imposed upon than extracted from the text; the method nevertheless had its good side. It at1 least taught the expositors to treat a book, an epistle or a psalm, as a literary unity. The authors of Glossse, Catenas, and Postillas were inclined to expound single texfs in an isolated manner without reference to the context or general aim of the book. The scholastic improved upon this so far as, with the best intentions, he looked for the underlying idea and the logical proofs of its expression. The Questionarii, to use a barbarous term, were, on the other hand, an outcome not so much of the lecture- room as of the public exercises or disputations. The plan of expounding Scripture by way of Questions was in itself ancient enough, but it naturally grew into favour under the scholastic regime. But as in the case of the analytical exposition, the Questions were not always elicited from within the text. They were suggested rather by something which was not there, and were attempts to satisfy theological curiosity by filling up the gaps in the historical revelation. Thus it is asked: In what season of the year was Adam created ? How long did he remain in paradise? Were the skins with which Adam and Eve there clothed themselves obtained from living or dead animals ? With what weapon did Cain slay Abel ? Elster gives an example from Hugh of St. Victor’s Questions and Decisions on the Epistle to the Romans. ‘ Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,’ etc. Question : Why did God redeem man by His death, when He might have saved him by a word ? . . . Question: Whether God could effect a more fitting mode of redemption ? If you say that He was not able, it seems that God’s power has a limit and is not immense. If you say that He was able, how is this the most fitting ? . . . Question: To whom is the price of our redemption paid— to God or the devil ? Solution: To God and not to the devil, and thereby no injury is done to the devil, since he was no more than the gaoler. Nor would he be willing to receive the price seeing that he wished to destroy man. . . .’ Here again there was a step gained, slight and tran­ sient as it may appear. The commentator on Scripture and the commentator on the Sentences seemed as a rule to be governed in regard to pious opinion by opposite 40 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN tendencies. The tendency of the dogmatic theologian was to find the most subtle distinctions between opinion and opinion, to seize upon one exclusively and to fiercely oppose the other. Schools were founded on refinements scarcely intelligible to those outside the pale of meta­ physics. With the Biblical commentator, especially of the mystical class, it was quite otherwise. His tendency was eclectic. His endeavour was to embrace with equal favour all interpretations which came from the Fathers— all opinions not inconsistent with the faith. While theo­ logians were split up into a number of contending parties, there was as yet nothing like different schools among commentators. New interpretations, mystical or otherwise, however inconsistent with one another, had in practice been wel­ comed by the expositor. A single text was sometimes made to bear the burden of several divergent and con­ flicting meanings. This was a weakness inherent in the system, though it did not attain to its fullest de­ velopment, or to the dignity of formal and dogmatic recognition in the schools, until, as we shall see, the beginning of the seventeenth century. Meanwhile the Questionarii, though they rarely touched the kernel of the text, acted as a drag upon a mischievous tendency, inasmuch as they inclined to create in the field of exegesis definite opinions which their advocates defended with argument as they would defend a theological pro­ position in the schools. Two books here deserve mention on account of their wide popularity and high reputation as in a special manner the outcome of this period, — the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor, and the Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony,—the first being one of the most characteristic and typical books of the age, and the second exhibiting its ripest fruit. Peter, named Comestor, Manducator, or Le Mangeur, on account of the avidity with which he devoured books, was Chancellor of Paris in 1164, and taught theology at the University. His famous work was an abridgment of the Bible history from the Creation to the end of the Acts of the Apostles, interwoven with stories from THE MIDDLE AGES 41 pagan writers, moral reflections and allegories. In the dedication of his book to the Archbishop of Sens, Comestor says that he was urged to undertake it by his colleagues, who found it difficult to gather for them­ selves the consecutive narrative, diffused as it was through the glosses. He affects to leave the ocean of mysteries to more skilful hands and to trace only the stream of history; but as he believes that of the three senses the literal, allegorical, and tropological, the first is the easier, the second the more acute, and the third the sweeter, he naturally desires to show his acuteness. He writes for the schools and not for the cloister. His book seems to have had a place in every library, and to have been in the hands of every theological student. It obtained for him the title of Magister Historiarum, and took rank by the side of Gratian’s Decretal and Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and the story arose that these three contemporary authors of the great mediaeval masterpieces on Dogma, Scripture, and Law, were three brothers. The abridgment of the historical books and of the Mosaic law is fairly done. The prophetic and sapiential books in the Old Testament or the Epistles in the New are scarcely touched. Even the Sermon on the Mount is passed over, with the exception of the Pater Noster, which is expounded in the usual scholastic manner. The Six Days’ Creation is also handled theo­ logically, and there is much curious and apocryphal information, mainly drawn from Josephus, on the early history of mankind, given partly in the text and partly in certain marginal notes or Additiones. ‘ The serpent was more subtle than all the beasts of the field both natur­ ally and incidentally—incidentally because he was full of the devil. . . . He, the devil, made choice of a serpent having the face of a virgin, for like things are pleased with their like, and he moved its tongue, without the serpent’s knowledge, in the same way as the devil speaks by the mouth of the possessed.’ Ludicrous trivialities appear side by side with solid matter. The name of Eva, we are told rightly, means Life. ‘ Yet the name was given after the curse as if to lament the misery of man, Eva in a manner bearing an allusion to the cry 42 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN of infants. For the male child, recently born, cries A , and the female, JE. Thus all who are born of Adam cry “ E vel A ” ' Comestor’s book may be taken as a typical product of the scholastic mind. It represents the kind of knowledge, the historic sense, the literary culture possessed by the ordinary schoolman, and any one who desires within the compass of an ordinary octavo volume to obtain a summary of the Biblical science of the day could do no better than read the Historia Scholastica. It was translated into French and was reprinted fre­ quently in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It deserves to be re-edited or even translated as a specimen of the literature of its date and class. Of quite another character is Ludolph’s L ife o f Jesus, and yet equally representative of one side of mediaeval thought. It exhibits the scholasticism and devotion of the age at their best. Free from the puerilities and defects of taste which disfigure Comestor, free, too, from the extravagances of the current dialectical methods, it presents a theological, historical, and mystical com­ mentary on the harmony of the four gospels which for gravity of style and devotional spirit is unsurpassed at that age. Comestor was concise and rugged: Ludolph is smooth and diffuse. He writes earnestly and per­ suasively, and closes every chapter with a devout prayer. Though he is generally known as ‘ Ludolph the Car­ thusian,’ he had spent twenty-five or thirty years as a Dominican. He was born in 1300, and it was only towards the end of his life that he retired to the Charter­ house at Strassburg. The popularity of the book well exemplifies the devotional use of the gospel narrative in the fourteenth century; and the recent editions, abridg­ ments and translations of it give practical proof that it is not antiquated or superseded in the nineteenth century. The British Museum alone contains fifteen editions of the Latin original printed between 1471 and 1580, not to speak of several editions of ancient translations into Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish. It has recently been republished in folio at Paris and Rome (1865). A French edition appeared in six vols. 8vo at Paris in 1864, another in seven vols. in 1870-73; and Father THE MIDDLE AGES 43

Coleridge has published a translation of a portion of the work into English under the title of Hours o f the Passion (1872). So far, although there were divers modes of exposi­ tion, much labour expended upon the text, and some good practical results, there was obviously little real progress in the understanding of the Bible. A new direction was, however, given to Biblical study in the beginning of the fourteenth century by a Franciscan friar of Normandy, Nicolas de Lyra, who brought about a change in the field of exegesis, not unlike that which his contemporary, William of Ockham, effected in scholastic theology. It was said, but without sufficient foundation, that he was a convert from Judaism. He at any rate learned Hebrew and read with profit the Jewish com­ mentators. He was made Master of Theology at Paris, lectured for many years on Scripture, wrote Postillce perpetuce seu brevia commentaria in universa biblia, and died in 1340. This commentary at once took the first place among all the extant works of the kind. Its in­ fluence was even greater than it deserved. He had little or no knowledge of Greek. He adhered to the three mystical senses, which he explains almost in the words of St. Thomas, but applies them in moderation. Indeed, he does not scruple to say that these interpretations have been commonly handled so as to suffocate the literal sense. ‘ Avoiding therefore these and similar evils, I propose ’ (he says) ‘ with the help of God, to insist upon the literal sense, and only sometimes or rarely to inter­ pose brief, mystical interpretations. Likewise I intend, in order to elicit that literal sense, to quote not only the opinions of Catholic doctors but also of the Hebrews, especially Rabbi Solomon.’ The recourse to Jews for the meaning of single terms or to fix the true readings of the text, was not altogether new. But with Lyra the practice of sometimes preferring the interpretation of a mediaeval Jew to that of an ancient Father pointed to the principle that exegesis was a question of philology rather than of authority. Scholarship, linguistic study, knowledge of antiquity were called into requisition, and commentators began to see that it was no longer the 44 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN mystical sense but rather the literal which was the more difficult. The mediaeval dictum was reversed. Sixtinus Amama asserts that the notion of the literal sense being easy and plain was due to an affectation covering laziness and lack of diligence. This may be true of more modern times ; but it is scarcely a fair charge to bring against the Middle Ages. Where there was little learning there was little sense of difficulty. Increase of knowledge brought an increase of difficulties. The literal sense now became the more real and the more important. Ockham denied the alleged reality of certain abstract metaphysical ideas. De Lyras method led eventually to the weakening of the belief in the reality of the mystical senses; or to the treating of them as, for the most part, mere accommoda­ tions, having their origin in the pious imaginations of the Fathers. But all this was not fully realised till the days of Erasmus and Luther. Then men came to trace the Lutheran exegesis to the innovating Franciscan: ‘ Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset.’ Luther him­ self regarded De Lyra as one of the best of interpreters, as he maintained that Ockham was ‘ the chiefest and most ingenious’ of the schoolmen. Although the Reformer condemned De Lyra’s occasional lapses into ‘ foolish allegories,’ he nevertheless could say heartily: ‘ Ego Lyranum amo et inter optimos pono ’ (Rosenmuller, v. 282). Meanwhile the new tendency did not pass without opposition. A Spanish Jew, Solomon Levita, converted to Christianity by the writings of St. Thomas, and after­ wards known as Paulus a Santa Maria, or Paul of Burgos, of which city he became archbishop, took upon himself to refute the principles of the postillator, and where possible to contest his interpretations, in a work entitled A dditiones notabiles ad postillas Nicolce de Lyra in totam scripturam. Paul begins by reasserting the position that the spiritual sense is the more worthy— litera occidit, spiritus autem vivificat — and follows the postillator, chapter by chapter, with his criticisms. De Lyra, for instance, treating of Genesis i., derides as ‘ truphatica ’ the opinion referred to above, that the number ‘ two ’ is of evil omen. His corrector calls him to THE MIDDLE AGES 45 task for speaking thus irreverently of an interpretation maintained by holy doctors, and proceeds to argue its reasonableness. The postillator, again, is bold enough, in defiance of the Glossae, to interpret the words in Jacob’s Blessing—‘ He shall wash his robe in wine ’—literally, of the fertility of the land, and to admit a reference to Christ’s Passion in the mystical sense only—an interpre­ tation which A Lapide rejects as ‘ frigid, earthly, and Judaic.’ The corrector, on the other hand, maintains that the phrase is a metaphor directly and literally referring to Christ. There is no important passage on which for some reason De Lyra is not taken to task by his critic, and this of itself constitutes a new phase, and one of great interest in the development of exegetical study. De Lyra was not unbefriended. A Saxon brother of his order, Matthias Doringk or Thoring, indignant at the pride and hostility of this ‘ corrupter ’ of a work ‘ neces­ sary to the Holy Church and venerable to all students,’ throws down the gauntlet in defence of his modest and humble Master. ‘ I, brother Matthias, the least among professors of theology, and unworthy minister of the Province of Saxony, at the request of many who value the aforesaid Postillae, have undertaken to do battle against the Burgensian for Nicolas, the master.’ . . . These Replicce, which Matthias wished to be called Correctoiium corruptorii, are commonly found printed together with the two Glossae, the Postillae of De Lyra, and the Annotations of Paul of Burgos; and the whole work thus forms a many-sided and well-nigh complete Corpus of Mediaeval Biblical learning. Encouragement had been given to philological studies in the beginning of the fourteenth century by the con­ stitution of Clement v. (1311) establishing chairs of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic in the Universities of Paris, Bologna, and Salamanca. The missionary and polemical spirit of the friars led them to cultivate these languages, especially in Spain, for the conversion of Moors and Jews. The movement had a favourable in­ fluence on Biblical commentary, at least with regard to the Old Testament. For Hebrew was then understood far better than Greek. The most conspicuous name 46 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN during this period of transition was that of Tostatus, already mentioned. His familiarity with Hebrew and his learning generally in all branches were for his time extraordinary. Unfortunately his prolixity is as notable as his erudition. He died at the age of forty (in 1454), having been able to accomplish no more than his com­ mentary on the historical books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Chronicles, extending to seventeen vols. folio, and on the Gospel of Matthew, extending to seven folios. He devotes himself almost exclusively to the literal sense, which he maintains is the more difficult. Scripture indeed is so difficult that even to this day, he declares, there are passages of which the meaning is not fully understood. The first thirteen chapters of Genesis are exhaustively discussed by the learned bishop in 834 Questions. One chapter of St. Matthew (chap v.) takes a whole volume to itself, divided into 356 Questions. It is asked why Christ ascended a mountain ? What mountain ? Whether Christ preached standing or sitting, and why sitting ? In what way He opened His mouth ? W e then have some thirty questions on the nature of beatitude and a series of discussions theological and casuistical on every point in the Sermon on the Mount, treated as such matters are treated in the Summa of St. Thomas. He often relieved the text from the weight of the mystical senses only to bury it under that of dogma. Yet if a man’s devotion to the Bible may be measured by the bulk of his printed matter, no Protestant has yet equalled Tostatus Abulensis. On the other hand, the revival of classical learning and of Greek scholarship had for a time apparently an un­ favourable effect upon Biblical studies. Theologians at the universities followed the old paths. The Humanists devoted themselves to pagan and secular literature. The Bible was in danger of neglect by both. Criticism on the Vulgate conceived in the spirit of Laurentius Valla only provoked opposition and reaction. A zeal for Greek appeared to have about it an heretical flavour; and mean­ while the study of Hebrew had again notably declined. Luther came at the opportune moment. But his origin­ ality was rather theological than exegetical. He made THE MIDDLE AGES 47 the discovery that the Bible was the sole rule of faith; and he placed it, as it had never been placed before, in the hands of the people. He discarded the mystical interpretations and dogmatic traditions by which the text had been obscured, and he deduced from, or read into, the text Protestantism instead of Catholicism. His attack, as has been said, found the Catholics in a measure unprepared. But their discomfiture was momentary. The Tridentine period opened with a display of energy and zeal in Biblical science, which in some directions put the Reformers in the background. Philological studies were pursued with ardour. The exigencies of controversy forced Catholic apologists for the time to have more regard to the natural and demonstrable meaning of the text, and to attach less importance to mystical interpretations, which were useless for estab­ lishing dogma. The fruits of the new movement in the sphere of exegesis were shown tentatively and crudely by Cajetan, and with more solidity and ripeness by Maldonatus and Estius. Here, it would seem, a survey of Biblical work in the Middle Ages should come to a close. There is, however, one feature in the subsequent history of the Bible within the Roman Church—a history of much interest in several points of view—which should not be passed over, inas­ much as it marks a certain unscientific and retrograde movement from which even the Middle Ages were com­ paratively free. First, it must be admitted that there was within the Church a progressive school of criticism, often, as was suggested above, in advance of orthodox Protestantism. Prominent Catholics taught a freer doctrine of inspiration, leading to a clearer recognition of the human element in Scripture, and held broader and sounder principles of textual criticism than those which were generally current in the opposite camp. Witness their juster appreciation of the most ancient Greek m s s . as against the unreasonable reverence elsewhere paid to the received text derived from Erasmus and Stephens. Witness, too, the Roman edition of the Septuagint under Sixtus v. There were, no doubt, controversial motives underlying this desire to bring to light the variety and 48 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN uncertainty of the current readings, but the beneficial result of the inquiries remained. When the Protestant Louis Cappelle wrote his Critica Sacra, throwing doubt on the antiquity of the Hebrew vowel points, and on the absolute correctness of the Masoretic text, he could not find a publisher of his own creed, and was unable to print his book until through the mediatorship of his son, who had become a Catholic, permission was obtained from the French King to have it printed at the royal press. Even in what is called the ‘ higher criticism,’ Catholics occa­ sionally led the way. Father Simon, though denounced by Bossuet and placed on the index by Rome, was no heretic, and has deservedly been called the father of modern criticism. But while in certain quarters there was active critical progress, and on all sides a vast amount of learning brought to bear on the illustration of the text, there was developed and formulated in the Catholic schools a doctrine which seems to make a rational inter­ pretation of the Bible impossible. This was the doctrine of the ‘ manifold literal sense.’ How far the theories or usages of the mediaeval doctors give support to this strange doctrine is a dis­ puted point. There are passages in St. Augustine in this sense which it is difficult to explain away, and much is made of a sentence in St. Thomas in which he seems to admit speculatively that it were fitting if in Scripture, even according to the literal sense, there were many meanings in a single word. But this is in such flat con­ tradiction to the immediate context (see p. 25) where St. Thomas implies that a multiplicity of senses would involve equivocation and confusion, that it is not, perhaps, without good ground that Professor Beelen sets aside the passage in question as an interpolation.1 Other mediaeval doctors explicitly reject the doctrine. Henry of Ghent says, as indeed common sense dictates, that a speech, in which the words mean literally many things, is ‘ a sophistical speech.’ Alexander Hales and Albertus Magnus are quoted on the same side. Later on there

1 See Dissertatio Theologica qua sententiam vulgo receptam esse sacrce Scriptura multiplicem interdum litteralem nullo fundamento satis jirmo niti demonstrare co- natur J. T. Beelen (Lovanii, 1845), where the whole matter is fully treated. THE MIDDLE AGES 49 occur more ambiguous statements. The recent Roman theologian, Perrone, insists indeed that Luther was the first to reject the multiple literal sense, and Perrone thereby meant no compliment to Luther. Beelen, on the other hand, maintains that the first to formally advocate this doctrine was the famous Salmeron, the Jesuit champion of orthodoxy at the Council of Trent. Salmeron argues that the Apostles quote, and that liter­ ally, single passages of the Old Testament in distinctly different senses. ‘ Does not St. Paul give three distinct interpretations of David’s words: “ Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te,”—first, of the eternal Word (in the Epistle to the Hebrews); secondly, of the resurrection (Acts xiii.); and thirdly, of Christ’s priesthood (Hebrews v.) ? Is it not clear that the prophet Hosea referred literally to the people of Israel when he wrote, “ Out of Egypt have I called my son,” and yet Matthew quotes the words as a literal prophecy of Christ ? ’ Salmeron was followed by the mass of theologians of every school —Jesuit, Dominican, Scotist— Bellarmine, A Lapide, Vasquez, Sylvius, Bannez, Gregory of Valentia, Frassen, and Billuart. A Lapide by this means reconciles various readings and divergent translations. In the canons, which he lays down for the understanding of St. Paul, he shows that Scripture may have discrepant versions, equally authentic, ‘ literal, and intended by the Holy Spirit. Thus, in Genesis we read ‘ Israel adored . . . turned towards ed' St. Paul reads ‘ Israel adored Here both versions were intended by Moses. It is suggested that Moses, writing mtth (without vowel points), wished the church to read and understand both matteh, staff, and mittah, bed. The same Greek words, it is said, may be rendered, in the Pater noster, either ‘ supersubstantial ’ or ‘ daily.’ Hence the Vulgate rightly gives the one in St. Matthew and the other in St. Luke. Both were equally intended by Christ. In this fashion the Bible becomes a magazine of conundrums. The Jesuit, Joseph Acosta,1 revels in the doctrine. ‘ Under the same letter (he writes) lie 50 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN many true and proper meanings, known to and intended ^ by the writer. We should despise no one’s exposition, no one’s opinion, as long as it does not contradict the faith or vitiate morals, and is in itself edifying. One man may contend that when Paul bids women veil their heads, propter angelos, he was thinking of the angels in heaven : another may argue that by “ angels” he meant “ priests.” If I say that the apostle meant both, no one should think me in the least foolish.’ Under this process the well-worn passages suffered most. The commentator does not ask whom precisely Jesus meant by thepauperes spiritu in the first beatitude. But he will endeavour to show that the words include (1) the contented and patient poor; (2) the poor, not by necessity but volun­ tarily, as monks and friars; (3) the rich, detached from their wealth, as Abraham; (4) the poor, not materially but spiritually, i.e. the humble and lowly, etc.; and if there is difficulty in including all of these under what is technically called the literal sense, there is a pretence made, in defiance of the accepted definitions of terms, to range some one or other under an ‘ anagogical ’ or ‘ symbolic ’ sense. The chief offender in this system, which robs the words of Jesus of all point, force, and definite meaning, is A Lapide, and hence his great popularity with preachers who wish to derive from a single text matter appropriate for a dozen different discourses. The pulpit, indeed, tends, as a rule, to be the worst enemy of sound exegesis. Almost the sole opponents, or at least the most notable opponents, of this doctrine in the sixteenth century, were Maldonatus and Estius, and hence their Outstanding merit.1 Estius wrote a formal treatise against the theory. Maldonatus showed his opinion plainly enough by his actual practice. With these exceptions the ‘ multiple literal sense’ was almost universally accepted for three centuries, until, after being for a while silently ignored in Germany, it was successfully attacked by Father Patrizzi of Rome and Professor Beelen of Louvain. It can hardly be denied that this notion, which may

1 Beelen also quotes on the same side Jerome Pradus, who wrote on Ezekiel. THE MIDDLE AGES 51 have had certain germs in mediaeval commentary, but which was first emphasised, formulated, and fixed firmly in the Roman Church, as has been said, towards the end of the sixteenth century, has placed a greater impediment in the way of true exegesis than the comparatively harm­ less mysticism of the early schoolmen. Meanwhile the Catholic position, with regard to the Bible, is being assailed by weapons far more serious than those of the Reformers. The attack in the sixteenth century had the character of a revolution—striking swiftly and suddenly. The assault of the critics in this present age has come slowly and gradually, and not without full warning. Fifty years ago there were, in Germany at least, Catholic scholars who, though yielding in some small measure to the methods and results of the new criticism, were famed throughout Europe as champions of orthodoxy against the advancing rationalism. John Jahn on the Old Testament, and Leonard Hug on the New, took their place among the foremost Biblical critics of the day, and were a force in the controversy which their adversaries could not ignore. But on the Catholic side, in this present generation, what single voice has been so raised as to compel a hearing from their oppo­ nents, or to add a grains weight to the controversy re­ garding the vital question as to the authorship of the Hexateuch or the origin of the Gospels ? The school­ men of the thirteenth century brought, at least, all the learning then attainable, and the best methods of research known to them, to the elucidation of the Bible. The contemporaries of De Lyra would have been ashamed to see themselves surpassed in Hebrew or in learning by Jew or Gentile. Assuredly, too, the Roman divines of the Tridentine period were not silent, and did not shrink from coming to close quarters with their opponents. But at last, and at a critical moment, a strange paralysis appears to have seized on Catholic scholarship. The defence of the traditional theories against the new criti­ cism is now left to orthodox Protestants. Even among the Catholics of Germany there is little sign of life. France, notwithstanding the stimulus of M. Renan, has in this controversy produced nothing of value. The 52 BIBLICAL STUDIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES English-speaking Catholics have produced nothing at all. At no period in the history of the Roman Church has the contrast between the critical ability or learning, within and without the fold, been more marked; and at no period, comparatively speaking, has the study of the Bible been more neglected. THE LATIN VULGATE

AS TH E

AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH *

T h e three languages in which the books of the Bible were originally composed, viz. Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek, have not only long ceased to be spoken as living dialects, but have gradually dropped out of general use among the learned; whilst Latin has almost exclusively become the adopted language of the Church in her laws, her ritual, and her schools of theology. The Word of God must therefore necessarily be interpreted to the faithful through the medium of translations. These translations, of various degrees of excellence or authority, are all of human origin, and though they may contain substantially the whole matter which was first put into writing by divine inspiration, they cannot reproduce the original text word for word with the precise force and with every shade of meaning which those words con­ veyed. For no two languages exactly correspond in their vocabulary, grammar, or idiom, and in the process of transition from one to another by a translation, there must be always something lost at one point or added at another which will affect the perfect or literal fidelity of the copy, even when it does not obscure the distinction of ideas or the point of an argument.2 The difficulty which there always must be in making a faithful trans-

1 From the new edition of The Douay Bible, London, 1877. 2 This is manifestly the case where the original contains a paronomasia or play upon words. To reproduce in a translation the similarity of sound, upon which the sense depends, is sometimes impossible. Thus, in 1 Samuel xxv. 25, Abigail says of her husband, ‘ Nabal is his name, and folly (n’balah) is with him,’ where the point is lost unless we know that nabal means fool. A more grave example is found in Matt. xvi. 18, ‘ Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram/ where the Vulgate is able to reproduce the allusion to the name of the apostle, which necessarily vanishes in the English : 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock / etc. Yet such verbal allusions abound in the Old Testament and are not infrequent in the New. 54 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE lation is unusually great in the case of the Holy Scrip­ tures. The larger part of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. That difficult language differs widely in its character from those that are now, or have been at any time, spoken in Western Europe. English and Celtic, German and Latin, Russian and Persian, all very dis­ similar on the surface, have comparatively a strong family likeness and can all be traced to a common parent stock ; but Hebrew belongs to another family altogether, of which Arabic is the only widely spread living repre­ sentative. It essentially differs from European languages in its words, in its idioms and metaphors, in the gram­ matical construction of sentences, in the metre of its poetry, and in the character of its literature throughout. Moreover, there are no remains of the language to be found except in the Bible itself. Within that narrow compass many words or phrases occur but once or twice, and in some cases we are left with little better than a guess at their meaning. For Hebrew had already be­ come a dead language, understood by only a few of the more learned Jews, before a single book of the Old Testament had been translated into any other tongue, or before there existed any systematic commentary, lexicon, or grammar to assist us in its interpretation. Moreover, in addition to the difficulty of arriving at the true sense of words, the translator of the Bible is often met with perhaps the still greater doubt as to the genuineness of the words themselves. They are printed plainly enough for us in our present Hebrew Bibles, with a very elaborate system of signs to mark vowels and half vowels and accents, prescribing minutely the pronuncia­ tion of every syllable. The number of words and letters in each .book has been counted, and the minutest varia­ tions in the spelling of words, or even in the shape of certain letters, have been scrupulously noted, as a means of preserving a uniform text. But all this is the work of Jewish scribes and doctors who lived many centuries after Christ.1 The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew 1 The vowel signs were unknown to St. Jerome and to the compilers of the Talmud. They were gradually elaborated, probably after the model of the Arabic-Syriac systems. The existing recension of the Hebrew is called the ‘ masoretic' text, from the Masora or tradition, the name given to various AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 55 -Bible in existence do not reach further back than the ninth or tenth century. Indeed we possess far more ancient copies of the New Testament than of the Old. Moreover, with regard to the New- Testament, several translations and commentaries of an earlier date than the oldest manuscripts come to our assistance in determining to some degree the state of the text, bearing evidence as to its general condition at least within a century from the time of its composition. But with the Hebrew Bible the earliest giiide of this kind is the Septuagint, a version made by Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria at intervals between 300 and 130 B.C. If we add to this (1) the copy of the Books of Moses, an edition of uncertain origin and date, which was in use among the Samaritans and written in the so-called Samaritan or Phoenician character ; (2) the Targums or Chaldee para­ phrases of the Pentateuch and the Prophets, dating in substance, perhaps, from the time of our Lord, though not committed to writing till the second or third century; and (3) the scattered quotations and references made by the writers of the New Testament and by the Jewish historian, Josephus, we have named nearly all the materials which are of use to the critic in deciding upon the text as it was current in the apostolic age, and these are separated from the originals of Moses and the Pro­ phets by many hundreds of years. Again, the further we trace back the evidence, or the more closely we examine these witnesses, the greater appears to be the difficulty in discovering the genuine words of the inspired writers. Thus, in regard to the Old Testament, the Septuagint is not only the most ancient bf these witnesses, but the only one whose testi­ mony covers the whole extent of the original text. The divergences of this Greek version from our Hebrew collections of marginal notes, compiled during the Middle Ages, frequently accompanying the text. Some of these annotators have calculated, for ex­ ample, that the first letter of the alphabet (tf) occurs in the Bible 42,377 times, the second (3 ) occurs 38,218 times; that ten verses begin and end with the letter n (3) ; that the central letter of the Psalter is the y in (Ps. lxxx. 14), etc. More important are the lists of keris or marginal readings preferred by the masoretic doctors to those placed in the texts. These lists, however, do not by any means agree. The formation of a written masora may have extended from the sixth or seventh to the tenth or eleventh century. 56 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE printed Bibles are considerable. It has without doubt suffered much itself in the course of time from the errors of copyists, interpolations, and omissions, and the various changes made by revisers with the help of later versions; but in passages where we have abundant proof of its undoubtedly genuine form, its readings differ widely not only from the present Hebrew text but from that which was generally current in the third or fourth centuries. The differences concerned not merely single words and sentences, but the arrangement of whole chapters and books, the essential points of important prophecies as well as the entire system of chronology. Yet the Septuagint was the version used almost exclusively by the Apostles in the New Testament. It was the canonical and authentic version of the Ancient Church from which nearly all other Catholic translations were made, whether in the east or west, for the first six centuries, until in the west it was gradually superseded by the Vulgate. Further back than the date of the Septuagint we cannot follow up the history of the text. W e can only infer from a comparison of parallel passages of the Books of Kings and Paralipomena, and the genea­ logical tables in which the same names are variously spelled, that mistakes of copyists were plentiful at a very early period, even before the completion of the Hebrew Canon.1 In the case of the New Testament, the language presents fewer difficulties to the translator, and we can reach far nearer to the original text, yet even here the language of the apostles was in many respects a foreign tongue to the native Greek. The inspired writers had to accommodate Hebrew ways of thinking to Greek words, and to force a new Christian sense upon old heathen terms. The writings of the New Testament may be said to form a dialect of their own, needing no little linguistic skill as well as theological science for its faithful interpretation. And with regard to the text, the sacred autographs, perhaps written originally on fragile papyrus, seem to have utterly perished without leaving a trace behind them in the next generation to 1 Danko, De Sacra Scriptura (p. 93). VindobonaB, 1867. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 57 the apostles. The earliest copies (i.e. of the fourth century) which have come down to our days, literally swarm with the mistakes of transcribers ; and the per­ plexing variations, whether due to accident or design, found in the manuscripts which were in the hands of the Fathers of the third or even of the second century, form a constant subject of complaint. 4 Great, in truth, has become the diversity of copies,’ says Origen (Comm, in Matt., ed. Bened. iii. 671), ‘ be it from the negligence of certain scribes or from the evil daring of some who correct what is written.’ Half a century earlier St. Irenseus uses similar language, and speaks of correctors ‘ who would be more skilful than the apostles ’ (contra Hceres. iv. 6,1); and earlier still (168-176), St. Dionysius of Corinth, writing to St. Soter, the Pope of his day, and complaining that the 4 apostles of the devil have filled with tares his own epistles,’ adds, ‘ this is not to be wondered at if they have also adulterated the writings of the Lord ’ (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 23). An editor of the Greek Testament has in fact to pick his way through some 50,000 variations. The greater portion of these will no doubt affect only the spelling or forms which do not touch the sense, and which therefore would not be felt in a translation, but several thousands would be so felt, and a large number concern historical facts, ques­ tions of harmonising the gospel narratives, and even the most important doctrines. Not only, then, is it now difficult and in some cases impossible for us, after the lapse of so many ages, to decide with certainty upon the exact words which were set down by the inspired writers, but this same difficulty has been experienced within and without the Church as far back as our records reach, and has resulted in con­ siderable divergences between the various Bibles in use. For instance, the ancient Fathers, with one or two exceptions, up to the time of Venerable Bede, would reckon from the ages of the patriarchs given in Gen. v., that the interval from the creation of Adam to the deluge was about 2260 years, instead of 1656 as we now read in the Hebrew and Vulgate; and, what is more im­ portant in view of existing controversies concerning the 58 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE antiquity of the Egyptian and Assyrian kingdoms, they counted, not 367 only but, 1017 years from the deluge to the call of Abraham. The length of the sojourn in Egypt and the period of the Judges were in like manner differently calculated, and the readers of the Septuagint1 would place the birth of our Lord 1500 years later in the history of the world than the date usually assigned ( a . m . 4004) by those who follow the modern Hebrew reckoning. As the chronology of the Bibles varied, so did their reading of the Prophecies. If a Christian disputed with a Jew he was commonly met with the answer, W e do not read it so in the Hebrew; while on the other hand, in the Hebrew Bible were read Messianic passages not found in the Septuagint. St. Justin Martyr quoted from Psalm xcv. 10, in reference to the cross of Christ, the words 4 regnavit a ligno Deus,’ which are still sung in the hymn Vexilla Regis, in Passion-tide,2 and are preserved in the Roman Psalter, but they have no place in our Bibles. In like manner the words of Habacuc, iii. 2, ‘ In the midst of two living creatures thou wilt be known,’ as they were read in the Septuagint and old Latin versions, were naturally applied to our Lord’s birth in the stable, but this sense is no longer apparent in the form which the passage assumes in the Vulgate, ‘ In medio annorum notum fades.’ More striking is the omission from the best copies of the prophet Isaias in the hands of the Fa­ thers. In the place of the words, His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come—they read simply ‘ His name is called the messenger of great counsel,’ omitting the very titles which especially proclaim the divinity of the holy child. In the Song of Jacob, which is allowed by the Jews to be prophetic of the Messias, both the reading and the

1 With the exception of the Peshito or Syriac version, dating from the second century, and St. Jerome’s translation in the fourth, which were made directly from the Hebrew, all the ancient versions in use among Christians closely followed the Septuagint, viz. the old Latin or Itala, the two Egyptian versions, Thebaic and Memphitic, in the third and fourth centuries, Ethiopian in fourth, the Gothic by the Arian bishop Ulphilas (circ. 348), the Armenian by Miesrob {circ. 410), the Georgian in the sixth. Moreover, translations were made from the Septuagint into Syriac in the sixth and seventh centuries. 2 ‘ Impleta sunt quae concinit David fideli carmine, regnavit a ligno Deus.* AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 59 interpretation of the principal word, upon which the prediction turns, was, and is still, a matter of great dis­ pute. The Hebrew, as it is now printed, is generally translated ‘ until Shiloh comes/ but what does Shiloh mean ? Some connect it with a word signifying peace, and understand the Bringer of Peace. St. Jerome, when forming his translation, had before him another spelling and rendered accordingly: He who is to be sent. But both interpretations were unknown to those who, like St. Augustine, used the Septuagint and followed a third reading: He whose right it is, or He to whom it belongs. The twenty-second Psalm, in which the sufferings of the crucifixion are foretold, affords another example of a disputed reading and rendering of the gravest impor­ tance. W e read now, as the Septuagint, old Itala, and Syriac versions did, ‘ They have dug (foderunt) my hands and my feet/ and St. Jerome in like manner translated the same Hebrew word as it stood in his copy (probably caaru), fixerunt, ‘ they have pierced/ but the masoretic text now has caari, which, if we shut our eyes to the context, could only bear the interpretation of the Jews ‘ as a lion.’ The difficulty is an old one. Aquila, how­ ever, a Jew in the second century, who made a very literal version from .Hebrew into Greek, probably in opposition to the Septuagint, seems not to have known the masoretic reading, for he gives the strange rendering 'flcrxwav, ‘ they have disfigured or soiled/ Nor did the variations between copies concern words and phrases only; they extended, as has been said, to chapters and books. The prophecies of Jeremias against foreign nations stand in an entirely different order of succession in the two recensions, Hebrew and Greek. Whole passages, besides many single verses, are omitted in the Septuagint, so that altogether about 2700 words are wanting in the Greek which are found in the Hebrew, and yet the origin of this remarkable discrepancy is lost in obscurity, and many modern critics, in spite of the adverse decision of St. Jerome, still maintain the integrity of the Greek text and its superiority to that of the Hebrew. If we turn from the text of the Old Testament to that 60 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE of the New, we here also meet with perplexing varieties which were widely current both in Greek copies and the ancient versions, Latin, Syriac, and Egyptian, and which touched both the facts of history and dogmatic teaching. Some of these documents omitted, for instance, the last twelve verses of St. Mark’s gospel; or the story of the woman taken in adultery, from St. John (viii. 3); or the verse concerning the moving of the water of the pool of Bethsaida, from the same gospel (v. 4); or the two verses concerning the sweat of blood in St. Luke (xxii. 43, 44); or the words of our Lord from the cross, 4 Father, forgive them,’ etc. (Luke xxiii. 34); or the Eunuch’s baptismal profession of faith in Acts viii. 37; and nowhere except among the African fathers and in the Latin version do we find ancient evidence for the text of the three witnesses (1 John v. 7). Other manuscripts and versions received as genuine words of our Lord such additions as the doxology, ‘ For thine is the kingdom,’ etc., at the end of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. vi. 9), which has retained a place to this day in the common Greek testaments, and in the Protestant version ; or a long passage interpolated after Matt. xx. 28, quoted by St. Leo, found in the famous codex at Cambridge in the old Latin version and the Syriac (Curetonian), though now rejected from all modern versions and editions ; while several of our most ancient Greek manuscripts transfer the incident related in St. John xix. 34 to Matt, xxvii. 49. and thus represent the piercing of our Lord’s side to have taken place while He was yet living. This manifest interpolation was then read in one of the ancient Syriac versions and the Ethiopic, and has even crept into two copies of the Latin Vulgate. Indeed, this corruption apparently threatened to become so general, that as late as 1311, Clement v. found it necessary, in the Council of Vienne, to formally condemn the erroneous opinion founded upon it, and to declare that St. John has recorded the event in its true position. Again, critics to this day are undecided whether they should read ‘ only begotten son’ or ‘ only begotten G od ' \ whether the words ‘ Church of the Lord,' or ‘ Church of God,’ should precede the clause ‘ which He has purchased with His own blood’ (Acts xx. 28); AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 61 whether St. Paul spoke of the 4 mystery of godliness * which was 4 manifest in the flesh,’ or o f 4 God manifest in the flesh ’ ; or, to take an instance from another doctrinal statement, whether we should read (1 Cor. xv. 51), ‘ We shall not all sleep, but we shall be all changed,’ or 4 W e shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed,’ or lastly, ‘ W e shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed.’ Examples of this kind might be quoted by scores. These are sufficient to show how easily omissions, or interpola­ tions, or changes of various kinds have disfigured our Biblical texts, and how difficult is the task of an editor or translator. The differences are evidently not a mere matter of learned curiosity. On the contrary, dogmatic passages are specially affected by them. Moreover, popular versions exist, which are manifestly tainted with heresy. Where, then, are we to look for a safe and trustworthy guide in so grave a matter ? Now it may be evident to a Catholic, that notwith­ standing the manifold errors which may have crept into particular copies, the substance of the Written Word could never be lost to the Church. It may be assumed that the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to preserve the purity of tradition and to guide the Church in her inter­ pretation of Scripture, could not fail to guard the sacred books themselves against essential corruption. Yet if the autographs of the inspired writers are no longer accessible, and the extant copies of the original texts differ among themselves, and if some of them may con­ tain false and dangerous interpolations, how are we to be certain, in the case of any one Bible before us, that we possess a faithful copy of the Divine Word which is the source of true doctrine ? This is the question which the Council of Trent set itself to answer in the year 1545. And at no time had the need for such a decision been more urgently felt. The license of the Reformation had just given birth to a number of misleading and heretical translations. Luther had impudently inserted in his German Bible the word alone (allein) to justify the false doctrine which he desired to find in the words of the Apostle (Rom. iii. 38): 4 We account a man to be justified by faith,’ etc. Others 62 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE too readily followed his example. The English Bible of Tyndale, 1526, was marked by a studied avoidance of all ecclesiastical terms. For church, priest, grace, confess, penance, Tyndale substituted congregation, elder, favour, knowledge, repentance. The contagion of novelty spread even within the Church. Printers and editors began to rashly tamper with the Latin Bibles in use. Some, carried away by the classical tastes of the age, wished to correct the rude Latinity of the traditional version and substituted new, unmeaning phrases for the well-defined and understood theological language of the Church. Others, proceeding on no fixed principles of criticism, wanted to conform its readings to that of the current Hebrew and Greek texts, till the variety of editions threatened to become a most serious evil.1 Meanwhile the general use of Latin as a means of communication among the learned of various nations made the need of a standard Latin Bible felt even from a literary point of view. On the Protestant side there appeared, in addition to several new Latin translations, a succession of revised editions of the Vulgate.2 But the attempts to secure anything approaching to uniformity were singularly unsuccessful, so that, in the words of the preface to the Rhemes Testament (1582), ‘ There is such diversity and discussion, and no end of reprehending one another and translating every man according to his fancy, that Luther said, “ If the world should stand any long time, we must receive again (which he thought absurd) the decrees of Councils for preserving the unity of faith, because of so diverse interpretations of Scripture.’” To provide a remedy for this confusion was one of the chief objects of the Fathers assembled at Trent, and the decree which was the result of their deliberations, 1 A whole series o f editions of the Vulgate had already appeared in the fifteenth century, which professed to be f ex fontibus Grascis et Hebraeorum libris emendata.’ But the most famous attempts at corrections of the Vulgate were those of Erasmus (New Test. 1516), and of Isidore Clarius, O.S.B. (1542), afterwards Bishop of Foligno. Geschichte der Vulgata von Dr. F. Kaulen, pp. 302-373. 2 Osiander (1522), Petrejus (1527), Luther in the Wittemburg Bible (1529), and Pellican (1532). The attempts at elegance of style which characterised some o f the translations from the original, reached a climax in that of Castalio or Chateillon in 1551, in which such words as genius, lavacrum, collegium, fanum, were intended to represent angel, baptism, synagogue, and temple. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 63 declaring among' so many Latin versions then in circula­ tion the ancient Vulgate to be authentic, has been justly reckoned as ‘ one of the greatest amopg the many bless­ ings which God has bestowed upon His church by means of that sacred Council.’ 1 The meaning and consequence of that decision may be made plain by a short account of the discussions which took place at Trent in preparation for the decree, and of the works subsequently undertaken at Rome to carry it into practical effect; while the intrinsic worth of the Vulgate and its relation to the other Biblical texts may be best understood by a brief description of its origin and early history. The Council was opened in December 1545. In February the terms of the decree upon Scripture and tradition (promulgated on the 8th of April following) were provisionally settled. In this the books of the Old and New Testaments, ‘ with all their parts as they were wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are found in the ancient Vulgate edition,’ are defined to be sacred and canonical. Meanwhile, on February 20th, a special commission of most learned prelates, under the presidency of Antony Filhol, Archbishop of Aix, was appointed to report on the 4 abuses of Scripture ’ and to propose suitable remedies. This report, drawn up by Filhol and Cornelio Musso, Ord. Min., Bishop of Bitonto, formed the basis of the decree ‘ de editione et usu sacro- rum bibliorum.’ Four chief abuses were stated, of which the first two only concern us here. These were : (1) the variety of translations, which caused a deplorable un­ certainty as to the true sense of the Scriptures, for which the remedy suggested was to indicate one as good, i.e. the edition in use, the Vulgate ; (2) the number of errors which have disfigured the Latin as well as the Hebrew and Greek texts, to remedy which it was proposed that the Pope should prepare new and revised editions, and have copies placed in every cathedral.2 1 Preface to the Vulgate, ascribed to Cardinal Bellarmine. 2 The third and fourth abuses were:—The license of those who interpret Scripture according to their own ideas, and the carelessness of printers in using faulty copies. Le Plat, Monumenta Cone. Trid.} iii. 395. Compare Theiner, Acta genuina SS. Cone., i. 64 et seqq. 64 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE

The motives and grounds upon which the decision of the Council was based are clearly expressed in the decree itself. 4 The sacred synod considering that no little utility might accrue to the Church of God if, from among all the Latin editions of the sacred books which are circu­ lated, some one was held to be authentic, makes known, determines, and pronounces, that this same ancient and Vulgate edition, which has been approved by the long use of so many centuries in the Church, should be held to be authentic in public lections, disputations, predications, and expositions, and that no one shall dare or presume to reject it on any pretext whatever.’ Further, the Council 4 decrees and determines that henceforth the sacred Scrip­ ture, but especially this ancient and Vulgate edition, should be printed as correctly as possible.’ It is to be observed, then, that the motive of the decree was that of practical utility. It was intended, in the first instance, to meet the abuse arising from the multiplicity of translations. To have selected a particular revision of the Hebrew or Greek texts for approbation would have been of little practical use. On the other hand, to form an entirely new translation (as was suggested by one of the theolo­ gians, Father Luigi Cataneo) would be only to give rise to fresh controversies; nor could this be done without first deciding on the disputed questions concerning the state of the original texts as they have come down to us, and, if this could be satisfactorily accomplished, the rela­ tion between the language of the old Bible and that of the ritual and the theological schools in which it was firmly embedded, would be greatly disturbed. Moreover, one of the chief grounds upon which the Church proceeds in her conciliar acts would here be wanting. There would be no tradition to guide her in her decision; whereas it was argued that the Vulgate had been before the eyes of the Church for above one thousand years. It had been in the hands of doctors and of saints. Its perfect orthodoxy was thus tested and guaranteed. It was the one form in which the Biblical revelation had been for long ages presented to the Church. Its text had not been copied by unknown individuals in heretical quarters, but had been publicly read, watched, and under- AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 65 stood, so that there was no fear of its having been sub­ stantially corrupted on any point. If practical utility then was the motive, traditional use was the ground of the decree which pronounced authentic this ancient vul- gate edition, quce longo tot sceculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est The Church had, in fact, already set her seal upon this her own edition,1 and therefore now makes known (innotescat) that this should be held as authentic. The objections which were made to the form of this decree whilst it was passing through the various stages of its discussion only served to bring into clearer light how well adapted it was to the needs of the Church, and how completely in accordance with Catholic principles. It was urged by Cardinal Pacecho (archbishop of Jaen) that it was nugatory to declare one edition authentic if all others were not condemned. It was answered that it was not said to be an abuse in itself that there should exist many editions of Scripture, for this has always been tole­ rated in the Church, and might still be, especially as many of those in circulation were good and could not altogether be rejected, but it was declared to be an abuse that there should exist many editions claiming to be authentic and so used in disputations. The Septuagint could not be rejected, nor even, said Bertano, Bishop of Fano,2 would he wish to condemn absolutely all translations that had been made by heretics, for those of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus were not so rejected by the ancient Fathers, and Theodotion’s version of the prophet Daniel had been even substituted by the Church in the place of the Septuagint translation. Therefore one should be recognised as authoritative and the rest neither approved nor disapproved. In accordance with this principle, the Council refrained from any mention of the original texts. The Vulgate is not once brought into comparison with them. To deter- 1 Hugh of St. Victor, in the twelfth century, speaking of the Vulgate, says * Ecclesia Christi per universam latinitatem prse casteris omnibus translationi- bus . . . hanc solam legendam et in auctoritate habendam constituit’ {De Script. c. ix.), and Roger Bacon, in the next century, f Hanc sacrosancta a principio recepit Romana Ecclesia et jussit per omnes ecclesias divulgari' {Opus Maj., p. 49, Londini, 1733). 2 Pallavicini, Istoria del Concilio di Trento, Lib. vi. cap. xv. 1. Cf. Theiner, Acta, p. 79. 66 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE

mine the state of those texts or the exact philological relation of the Vulgate to them, is a matter left to the investigation of private scholars. The Council concerned itself only with Latin Bibles (‘ ex omnibus latinis editioni- bus quas circumferuntur ’), and in selecting the Vulgate from among them pronounces it to be authentic. The meaning of the term authentic is to be learned from its use in Roman law, where it is applied to any document possessing the force and authority of an original. When, for instance, an original document is lost or has become unintelligible, a copy or translation may be taken as authentic, and used in its place. Now, the Bible is an original document of divine revelation. An authentic edition of this document is therefore an edition recog­ nised as the exact expression of the will of God. The Church, as the legitimate interpreter of God’s written revelation, is competent to judge of the value of such a document. When, therefore, she declares that the Vul­ gate is an authentic Latin edition of the Bible, she de­ clares that from this version we may learn as from a certain and infallible source all the doctrines and com­ mandments of God, which He has been pleased to reveal through the sacred writings. It is substantially identical with the original for all such purposes as the Bible was intended to fulfil. The Church does not pronounce on the philological exactness of the book as a translation, but on its real value. The Council, indeed, never speaks of the Vulgate as a version, but calls it simply editio. A less exact copy as a translation may yet be the only authentic one. St. Jerome’s version of the Psalms is probably nearer to the original Hebrew than that now found in the Vulgate, yet the latter and not the former is authentic. Just as if (to use an example given by Bishop Haneberg)1 the Emperor of Austria were to publish a code of laws in the German language, and, at the same time, several private translations were to appear * in Hungary, some of which were more literally faithful, and others more free, the Emperor might declare the more free version to be the only legitimate and authentic

1 Histoire de la Revelation Biblique, par le Dr. Haneberg*, trad, de l’Allemand, tome ii. p. 446. Paris, 1856. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 67 organ of his legislation in Hungary. And further, the same code of laws might have many authentic transla­ tions for the use of various countries, differing one from another in certain details, and yet the authenticity of the one would not exclude that of the other. So in like manner the Church’s declaration that the Vulgate is authentic need not exclude the intrinsic authenticity of the Septuagint, or the Syriac Peshito, still less of the original texts. But since this definition of the Church has been made, we have a certainty which we cannot have in the case of any other editions, that not only is there no error whatsoever in the Vulgate regarding matters of faith and morals, but that the whole of the written revelation of God is therein contained. The Vulgate may not correspond with the originals, verse for verse, but taken as a whole there is no dogma revealed through the written word which is no longer to be found in this edition, nor is there any doctrine now read there which did not form part of the original.1 Moreover, in purely historical portions, the Vulgate must be admitted to substantially represent the sacred text throughout as originally written. The decree is not a mere negative declaration that the volume is free from error in faith and morals. It declares that volume to be an authentic Bible. Nor is it a decree respecting discipline only— it is a real dogmatic decision of binding force even for those of the Greek or Syriac rite for whom the use of the Vulgate is not obligatory. It is remarkable to us, who read the acts of the Council in the light of subsequent events, that this decree, so well sifted and so admirably adapted to the needs of the Church, should have been misunderstood for a moment. Yet, as soon as the decree was transmitted to Rome, and such grave opposition was raised against it that the Pope was urged to withhold his consent, a commission of theologians was, in fact, appointed to examine it quoad formam, and the correspondence which was carried on between the legates at Trent and Cardinal Farnese and Monsignor (afterwards Cardinal) Sirleto, contributes still further to illustrate the point of view in which the question 1 Kaulen, Geschichte der Vulgata, p. 414. 68 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE was then regarded, and to show how far the results of modern criticism were anticipated by the chief Catholic scholars of the day. The complaints were principally these:— The Vulgate is pronounced authentic, and yet in the same breath the Council admits what is patent to every one, that it needs revision. Secondly, it is com­ manded that the Holy Scripture, and especially this ancient Vulgate, should be printed as correctly as pos­ sible, and yet it is not said by whom or in what way this revision is to be carried out. The legates, in reply, referred to the terms of the Report on the Abuses of Scripture, already mentioned, and they point out that it was not there said that the Vulgate itself is corrupt, but only certain copies of it.1 As Cardinal S. Croce expressed it in a private letter to Monsignor Maffei, the Vulgate is, as it were, the genus, of which the single impressions are the individuals. The faults which they wished to be removed were errors of copyists only. It seemed, indeed, to certain Roman scholars impossible to leave intact passages in the Vul­ gate which differed from the Greek and Hebrew, or which were not elegantly translated. The legates urged, on the other hand, that the texts of these two languages are more corrupt than the Latin, and that it was notorious that the more ancient and faithful are our m s s ., the more they are in agreement with the Vulgate. They add : To have pretermitted in the decree the approbation of the Vulgate would have been to oppose the will of all the prelates and theologians of the Council; and the result would have been that in a short time no one would have known what was, in fact, the true Bible, so great is the number of translations, all differing one from another on important points, and all of a character well calculated to foment existing heresies, as well as to give rise to others.

1 The actual words of the deputies were: f Abusus est nonnullam incorrec- tionem codicum qui circumferuntur Vulgatae hujus editionis poti. Remedium est ut, expurgatis et emendatis codicibus, restituatur christiano orbi haec ipsa Vulgata editio sincera et pura a mendis librorum qui circumferuntur. Id autem munus erit Ssmi. D. N. Papae, quem sacrosancta Synod us humiliter exorabit, ut pro ovibus Christi suae beatitudini creditis^hoc onus ingentis fructus et gloriae sui ipsius animi magnitudine dignum suscipiat, curando etiam ut codicem Graecum item Hebraeum, quoad fieri potest correctuni, sui ipsius opera habeat ecclesia sancta Dei.’ Vercellone, Dissert, p. 82. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 69

Whereas all had agreed, uno omnium consensu, that the Vulgate had never been suspected of heresy, but by special privilege of God the version which had been used by the Roman Church had ever been preserved uncor­ rupted in this respect. As to less important blemishes, such as rudeness of style, or even obscure, absurd, or unintelligible passages of which it is accused, every one possesses full liberty and facility to complete or explain the sense by aid of interpretations, annotations, or even new translations. The Council in approving the Vulgate has not condemned other good Catholic versions which may help to elucidate this which alone is authentic, but leaves each in the same position in which it stood before the decree. Lastly, as to the practical question of revi­ sion, the legates pray His Holiness to undertake the publication of a corrected edition, and propose that the Fathers in Trent should assist in the work, so that, when finished, the Bible should be issued with the authority of the Pope and the approbation of the Council. These explanations proved to be satisfactory, and the researches of the two learned Barnabites, Ungarelli and Vercellone,1 have recently brought to light fresh evidence, if fresh were needed, of how faithfully and perseveringly the Roman Pontiffs laboured to carry out the wishes of the Council. These labours were indeed far greater than were at first expected. It was soon found to be imprac­ ticable for the theologians at Trent to take the prominent part in the revision which was originally intended, and the few materials they had collected were therefore dispatched to Rome, where a commission, which had been appointed under Paul hi., was already actively at work. The studies thus hopefully commenced in 1546 were, however, to continue with some slight interruptions for forty years before the anxiously expected official text was ready to see the light. As early as 1561 Pius iv. sent for the printer, Paul Manuzio ; and Cardinal Seri- pando, the legate then presiding at the Council, which

1 Vercellone, Studi fatti in Roma e mezzi usati per corrigere la Biblia Volgata (published in Dissertazioni Accademiche, Roma, 1864), and translated into French in the Analecta Juris Pontificii, Roma, 1858, series iii. p. 683. Also Ungarelli, Prcelectiones de N . T., et historia Vulg. Bibl. Edit. (Romse, 1847), republished by Vercellone in his Varice Lectiones Vulg., vol. i. 70 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE had not yet terminated, was congratulating Sirleto, who had been the soul of the whole undertaking, on its proximate conclusion. But shortly afterwards (1565) the congregation, having obtained a number of ancient m s s ., patiently began their labours once again. Under Gregory xm. a further interruption was caused by the prudent proposal of Cardinal Perretti (afterwards Sixtus v.) to have an accurate edition of the Septuagint printed as an aid to the revisers. This, the Roman edition of the Septuagint based upon the Vatican m s s . published in the second year of Sixtus’s pontificate, has to this day never been superseded by a better.1 Meanwhile the most distinguished theologians and linguists of the period had been engaged in the successive congregations 1 In the preface to this celebrated edition, Sixtus v. wrote: { Volumus et sancimus ad Dei gloriam et ecclesiae utilitatem ut vetus Graecum Testamentum juxta lxx. ita recognitum et expolitum ab omnibus recipiatur ac retineatur, quo potissimum ad Latin® Vulgate editionis et veterum Sanctor. Patrum intelligen- tiam utantur’ (Brunati, Dissert, de Vulgata. Viennae, 1827). ‘ The first text of the lxx.,’ says Mr. Tregelles (Account o f the Printed Text o f the Greek N. T., p. 185), ‘ which obtained a wide and general currency, was the Aldine (Venice, 1518). This was repeatedly reprinted and habitually used. About seventy years after this first appeared, the Roman edition of the lxx. was published (1586), based on the Codex Vaticanus: how was it that the Roman text obtained such a currency as to displace the Aldine, and to maintain its stand in public estimation for more than two centuries and a half? How should Protestants have been willing to concede such an honour to this text which had appeared under Papal sanction ? It gained its ground and kept it, because it was really an ancient text, such in its general complexion as was read by the early Fathers. The Roman editors shrewdly guessed the antiquity o f their ms. from the form of the letters, etc., and that too in an age when Palaeography was but little known ; they inferred the character of its text partly from its age, partly from its accordance with early citations; and thus, even though they departed at times inadvertently from their ms., they gave a text vastly superior to that of the New Testament in common use from the days o f Erasmus/ This testimony of one of the chief among recent textual critics, together with the facts stated above, is a sufficient answer to the often quoted statement o f Bentley. When Bentley discoursed on the Vulgate of the 'Protestant Pope Stephens/ as he named the received Greek Testament, he knew his subject well. His means of information on the revision of the Latin Vulgate were perhaps not so great, and he was content with the most groundless conjectures. ‘ Popes Sixtus and Clement ’ (he writes in his letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1716), ‘ at a vast expense had an assembly of learned divines to recense and adjust the Latin Vulgate, and then enacted their new edition authentic; but I find, though I have not discovered anything done dolo malo, they were quite unequal to the affairs. They were mere theologi, had no experience in mss., nor made use of good Greek copies, and followed books five hundred years before those of double age. Nay, I believe they took this new one for the older of the two ; for it is not everybody knows the age of a manuscript.* Bentley recognised the value of the Vulgate in its original state, but assumed as a matter of course that the Roman congregations did not know, as well as he did himself, upon what principles to edit the text. The character of the work undertaken by the AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 71 for the emendation of the Vulgate.1 They consulted for the purpose not only the best m s s . known in Rome, but had collated ancient codices from all parts of Europe. Their instructions were to restore the Vulgate to its original purity and not to emend it by comparison with the original texts. Cardinal S. Croce (afterwards Mar- cellus ii.), Sirleto, and Carafa were the most active in procuring valuable m s s . The Benedictines of Florence received orders to collate the best codices in their posses­ sion. They did so, and the results of their labours are preserved in the Vatican. Under S. Pius v. the Bene­ dictines of Monte Cassino received a similar invitation from the Holy See, and collected a rich harvest of read­ ings from twenty-four ancient copies. A little later the correctors got to know of a manuscript, most precious and ancient, found in the Cistercian monastery of Mont’ Amiata. The religious made a little difficulty about parting with so rare a treasure, but soon received an express order from Sixtus v. to dispatch it forthwith to Rome, and to Rome it accordingly went. The correctors at once recognised the inestimable value of this manu­ script, now known as the famous Codex Amiatinus, and having entirely collated it sent it back to Mont’ Amiata, whence it was ultimately removed to the Laurentian library at Florence, where it now rests. This is without contradiction the most ancient and best m s . which we possess, and Tischendorf, who published it in 1850, de­ cides that it was written by Abbot Servandus about the year 541, a little more than a hundred years after St. Jerome’s death. Vercellone affirms, in proof of the critical discernment of the revisers, that they made more Roman editors has indeed, until quite recently, been little understood. E. Ranke, one o f the few Protestants who have made the Latin Bible a special study, expresses a very different judgment to that of Bentley. f Eorum opinionem,’ he writes, e qui celeberrimum illud ecclesiae Romanae cimelium citra artis criticae leges redactum esse suspicantur erroneum esse absque ulla dubita- tione assero. In universum satis bonum esse textum neque absimilem a fonti- bus authenticis,’ etc. {Codex Fuldensis, p. 569, Marburgi, 1868); and in respect to slight additions or transposition of such words as est or sunt, enim or autem, by which the sense of a passage may be made clearer, he sensibly remarks that the Roman doctors are not justly to be blamed, seeing their object was to deliver the Scriptures not to learned men only, but to the Church. 1 Many of these were well known for their publications on Biblical criticism, exegesis, etc.— e.g. Agellius, Pet. Morinus, Rocca, De Rubeis, Cordes, Bellar- mine, Toletus, Sa, and during the latter period Cardinal Allen. 72 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE use of this than all the others. The Paris and Louvain printed editions supplied readings from m s s . in the north, and Christopher Plantin offered the Pope colla­ tions of sixty Belgian m s s . Cardinal Carafa, remember­ ing that, in the lifetime of St. Jerome, Lucinius Bseticus, a wealthy Spaniard, had sent six copyists to take copies of all the writings of the saint, wisely thought of Spain. He therefore wrote to the Apostolic Nuncio and obtained the best m s s . of Leon and Toledo.1 They also made much of the Bible of Charlemagne, preserved in St. Paul’s eoctra muros, and the celebrated Cod. Statiensis or Valli- cellensis, a beautiful specimen of Alcuin’s recension, given to S. Philip Neri by his friend and penitent, Achilles Stazio, now at Chiesa Nuova. Sixtus v. at last determined to bring the work to a conclusion, and having received from the hands of the congregation, ‘ pro emen- datione bibliorum,’ their materials and notes, he under­ took with characteristic energy to put the final hand to the revision himself, and to see the Bible through the press. The volume was but just printed and a few copies only circulated when the Pope died. The rules or canons which he had drawn up for his own guidance differed in some measure from those adopted by the congregation presided over by Cardinal Carafa. His method of pro­ cedure therefore was displeasing to many, and misunder­ stood by others,2 and in the general dissatisfaction it was thought fit to recall the impression, and subject it once more to a thorough examination by a commission under the presidency of Cardinal Colonna, with whom was associated Cardinal Allen. This task was but just finished when Gregory xiv. died, October 1591, and the glory of finally carrying out the Tridentine decree and giving to the Church the long expected official copy of the authentic Vulgate was reserved for the pontificate of Clement v i i l , 1592. 1 The former is now lost. The readings' of the latter (Codex Toletanus) have been published by Bianchini, Vindiciae Canon., etc. 2 His corrections were by no means conducted on arbitrary or unscientific principles, and the mere errors of the press, about forty in all, were not nearly so numerous as those which appeared in the first impression of the Clementine edition : but the industry of the Pope unnecessarily called attention to them by pasting them over with pieces of paper, containing the necessary corrigenda, and issuing copies thus disfigured to the public. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 73 From that time to this, the most perfect edition of the Bible ever given to the Church has remained untouched, and the three centuries which have passed since it first saw the light have only served to win for it the increased respect of scholars even outside the Church. The most learned among Protestants have indeed always recognised its superior worth, at least as a version. Drusius praises the Council of Trent for the preference given to it above all modern translations. Walton admits that ‘ though we do not call it divine we may yet say that it is highly to be esteemed, as well on account of its antiquity and general use throughout the West for a thousand years as on account of the learning and fidelity of the translator.5 Michaelis severely blames those who ignorantly thought little of it, and calls it ‘ versionum una omnium prsestan- tissima’ t(Brunati, De Vulgata, p. 43). But this appreciation was confined to a few who rose above the prejudices of their sect, and, moreover, referred mainly to the excellence of the translation as one that was learned, fair, and unbiassed. The exaggerated views which prevailed even among the learned as to the correct­ ness and purity of the original texts as they have come down to us made men slow to recognise the truth, long ago perceived by Roman scholars, that the Vulgate pos­ sesses great critical value in correcting the originals them­ selves. In regard 'to the Old Testament, false views as to the use and object of Scripture as the sole rule of faith led to a virtual canonisation of the current form of the Hebrew text, and it became almost an article of faith among certain sects to uphold the masoretic readings down to the minutest vowel points and accents, as be­ longing to the age of Moses or Esdras, and divinely inspired. Lud. Cappellus, a Protestant minister, who was among the first to give a rude shock to this unfounded prejudice, could not find a printer for his work, and had to bring it out under Catholic auspices (1650) at Paris. If the masoretic or traditional text still practically holds its ground, it is only because, for reasons already given, we have not sufficient materials for restoring it in doubt­ ful passages without having recourse to conjecture. It has the advantages of possession, and critics for the most 74 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE part in dealing with it seem influenced by some tacit agreement to make the best of what they dare not attempt to improve. On the other hand, St. Jerome certainly occupied a better position and had safer guides than we can boast of now. He had, to begin with, probably far better copies of the Hebrew from which to translate, as well as Jewish instructors at his elbow to assist him with the then received traditional readings and interpretations. But he had, in addition, the whole of Origen’s Hexaplar, that is, not only the Septuagint in a state to which we can now never hope to restore it, but the literal Greek translations entire of Aquila, Theodo- tion, and Symmachus (not to speak of portions of other ancient versions of the same kind), of which great work only scanty fragments have been preserved to our days. No edition of any kind, including the Septuagint itself, can now compete with that of St. Jerome as a critical representative of the original Hebrew text. The history of the printed text of the New Testament during the last three centuries is also most instructive, and leads comparatively to a still more favourable judg­ ment of the Vulgate. The first published Greek Testa­ ment was that of Erasmus, hastily brought out (1516) by the printer Froben, at Basle, in order to anticipate that of the famous Polyglot, edited by Cardinal Ximenes, and known to be already in type. It was formed from a few modern manuscripts of little value. For the Apocalypse he had only one manuscript, which he boldly described as Vetustissimus codex, adding that it was ‘ so old one might believe it written in the Apostles’ time.’ It was, in fact, a cursive m s. of the twelfth century containing a commentary of Andreas, Archbishop of Caesarea, in which the text was mixed up with the annotations, and even this was mutilated, wanting several verses. Erasmus retranslated the missing sentences from the Latin, and the negligence and haste with which he transcribed the manuscript led him more than once to mistake the re­ marks of Andreas for those of St. John, and sometimes to omit, and at other times to add, whole words without any authority whatever. Several of these interpolations or inventions of Erasmus still hold their place in the com­ AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 75 mon Greek Testaments and in the Anglican version.1 The reputation of the editor, however, gained for this Testament a brilliant success. * Can there be anything better and more perfect than the edition of the New Testament by Erasmus?’ said (Ecolampadius. It was republished in 1519, 1522, 1529, and 1535, with some improvements from the Complutensian Polyglot, which had appeared in 1520 and with some deteriorations, but yet with no essential change. It was made the basis of nearly all the versions. To Erasmus succeeded Stephens; to Stephens, Beza, and to these the Elzevirs, but none of the editors had materials, or knowledge to use what they had, to enable them to prepare a thoroughly revised text. Beza was notoriously influenced in his choice of readings by his heretical opinions. Meanwhile the text had by force of custom or by mere accident become, as it were, stereo­ typed. The third edition of R. Stephens (1550) is the standard copy of the 4 Received Text.’ The name was adopted from the preface of the Elzevirs to their edition in 1624, in which the title is boldly claimed, ‘ textum nunc habes ab omnibus receptum.’ This latter in fact follows closely the standard of 1550, and this in turn is little else than a reproduction of the 4th and 5th of Erasmus. Thus a haphazard recension of the Greek text, which was entitled to no credit either on the score of antiquity, authority, or critical worth, came suddenly to be regarded with almost superstitious reverence. For more than a century little was done which could even suggest the possibility of its improvement. In course of time, however, manuscripts were collected and examined 1 This interesting codex which Erasmus borrowed from Reuchlin, of which all trace had been lost, was re-discovered, in 1861, by Professor Delitzsch, and the suspicions long entertained of the unscrupulous manner in which Erasmus had treated it were fully confirmed. Delitzsch pointed out (in his Handschrift- liche Funde) about eighty verses in the first eleven chapters in which errors o f all sorts occur. One specimen will suffice. In the Anglican version following tfthe Greek’ we read (Apoc. i. 9), ( I, John, who also {koL) am your brother/ This ‘ also ’ is found in Luther’s Bible, and the Dutch and French translations. It originated thus:—The word Keipevop, i.e. text, occurs in an abbreviated form in the m s . wherever a new section of the text commences. The leaf happens at this place to be destroyed, leaving only the letter k visible. Erasmus by a double mistake took this to be part of the verse, and read it Jeromes own time. He probably had a dozen where we have one of the oldest class, such as the Vatican codex, and many of a far earlier date such as we can never hope to dis­ cover. Moreover, he could discriminate between these 82 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE

ancient forms of the text in a way no longer possible to us. W e are ignorant of the sources from which our codices are derived, or of the character of their copyists. The caprice or heterodoxy of untrustworthy editors may have had much to do with some of their peculiarities. St. Jerome knew of editions which were thus to be avoided (praetermitto eos codices quos a Luciano et Hesychio1 nuncupatos paucorum hominum asserit perversa con­ tention and, on the other hand, he made use of copies which from their known history and antecedents he could trust. By a strange misconception, however, of the simple plan pursued by the saint, and in distinct contradiction to his own express words, it has been constantly repeated of late that St. Jerome intentionally made choice for his revision of those Greek m s s . which he found to differ least from the Latin, as if the object of his selection was not the intrinsic worth of a manuscript but its acci­ dental agreement with the Itala,2 or rather his own standard copy. This mistake, which tends to consider­ ably diminish the value of his revision, may be traced to a slip of the pen or erroneous reading on the part of the learned Dr. J. L. Hug, which has been propagated in one shape or another by a whole series of writers* St. Jerome, in fact, when dedicating the first portion of his work to the Pope, tells him3 that he offers now only the four gospels, corrected by a collation of the Greek codices but ancient ones, and lest these (gospels) should depart too much from the accustomed Latin reading, he has so restrained his pen as to make alterations only where the sense would seem to be affected, etc. (Igitur hasc prsefatiuncula pollicetur quatuor tantum evangelia . . . codicum grascorum emendata collatione, sed veterum; 1 These recensions or copies of Lucian and Hesychius are mentioned in the list of condemned or prohibited books issued by Pope Gelasius, a.o* 495. Episfc. Decretalis de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris, etc. c Evangelia qure falsavit Lucianus, apocrypha. Evangelia quae falsavit Hesychius, apocrypha.’—Thiel, Epistolce Rom. Pont. i. 463. * e But in order that the discrepancy between his emendation and the ancient' versions might not be too striking, he was careful in the selection of his mss. to get only such ancient copies as contained a text analogous to that from* which these versions had been made.’— Hug, Introd. to the New Test., Fosdick’s translation, p. 269. 3 See Preface to the Evangelists addressed to Damasus. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 88 quse, ne multum a lectionis latinse consuetudine discre- parent, ita calamo temperavimus (or imperavimus) ut his tantum, quae sensum videbantur mutare, correctis, reliqua manere pateremur ut fuerant). Instead of quce ne, which can refer only to evangelia, Hug writes, in support of his theory, nec qui, an invention of his own, and thereby makes St. Jerome’s caution apply not to the alteration of the Latin gospels, as it should, but to an arbitrary selection of Greek codices as his models.1 Bleek (Introd. to N . T., ii. 363) follows in the same sense—‘ He com­ pared especially the oldest m ss. and those which he found most to harmonise with the text o f the old Latin,’ and in a note quotes the passage, likewise inaccurately, nec qui. Davidson (Criticism o f the N . T., p. 250) falls into the same error. Professor Reuss (Geschichte der heil. Schriften N . T 4th edit., 1864, p. 466) and O. F. Fritzsche (in his article on the Vulgate in Herzog’s Real-encycl.) are still wider of the mark, both reading qui non ; while, as if the words were fated to never be quoted correctly, Tischen­ dorf, in his Prolegomena to the seventh edition of his Greek Testament (1859), p. ccxlvii., writes 4sed veteribus nec qui.’ There is therefore no ground whatever for sup­ posing that St. Jerome made use of any Greek m ss. in his revision of the Vulgate, except such as he considered to be absolutely the best. If he used these sparingly he gives us thereby the best proof of his wisdom, for even in his day the readings of the Latin often had an indepen­ dent value of their own. It is impossible for us now to put ourselves in St. Jerome’s position. W e cannot point out all the corrections in the Vulgate which are due to his hand, and' if we could do so with certainty we cannot now estimate the evidence which he had before him and upon the strength of which he made those corrections. But the accidental statements made by him, or by other early Fathers, in letters or commentaries, occasionally reveal to us a condition of the Greek Testament very different from that which is now accessible, and should in many cases lead us to place full confidence in a reading 1 Reithmayr pointed out this inaccuracy o f Dr. Hug long ago {Einleitung in die can. Bucher des neuen Bundes, 1852), and mentions Feilmoser, Guerike, and Reuss as having fallen into the same error. Reuss, it will be observed, has repeated the mistake in a later edition. 84 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE of the Vulgate even when supported by little or no existing manuscript evidence. The following instances may help to explain the pro­ cedure of St. Jerome, and to illustrate the kind of agree­ ment which exists between the Vulgate and ancient Greek authorities in opposition to the mass of modern m ss. A ll the copies of the Itala, as far as we know, read in Matt, v. 22, ‘ whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause' This is an example of just such an interpolation altering the sense which St. Jerome would make it his business to remove. He expressly tells us that he found the corresponding Greek word eitcfj in some of his manu­ scripts, but not in the true copies. He therefore erased it, and so do most modern critics. Yet it is not only now read in the received Greek text and the Protestant versions founded upon it, but there are only two or three Greek manuscripts besides the Vatican and Sinaitic codices which do not retain the interpolation. Again, if we trusted exclusively to our present Greek m s s ., including the two most ancient ones above men­ tioned, we should read the order of the Beatitudes as in the received text, ‘ Blessed are the meek . . .’ ‘ Blessed are they who mourn . . .’ But St. Jerome kept the inverted order of the verses as they are found in most copies of the Itala, and we happen to have an express comment upon this order by Origen, who knew of no other; while Eusebius’s arrangement for a harmony of the gospel gives further proof that the Vulgate is right, though only now supported by Codex Bezae and one cursive of a later date which we know often follows ancient readings. A still more striking instance may be found in Matt. i. 18. St. Irenseus in the second century draws an argument against the Gnostics on the words as we now find them in the Vulgate, ‘ Christi autem generatio sic erat,’ without betraying a suspicion that any other reading existed. ‘ Ceterum,’ he writes, ‘ potuerat dicere Matthseus, Jesu vero generatio sic erat, sed prse- videns Spiritus Sanctus depravatores et praemuniens contra fraudulentiam eorum per Matthaeum ait Christi autem generatio sic erat.’ Here we are enabled to infer with certainty that ’Irja-ov was not in Irenseus’s copy, or AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 85

in any that he knew of. Yet not a single Greek m s . now in existence contains what should be acknowledged as the genuine reading of the Vulgate. The variation of the Vulgate in Matt. xix. 17, ‘ quid me interrogas de bono ? ’ instead of ‘ quid me dicis bonum ? ’ as compared with Mark x. 18, and Luke xviii. 19, is an interesting example of the same kind, and one which has given rise to much recent controversy. The Latin here retains (with the support of only six Greek copies) words of our Lord which are altogether lost from the great mass of Greek manuscripts and from the received text. Yet Origen expressly discriminates between the question of our Lord as recorded by St. Mark and St. Luke and that of St. Matthew just quoted, and so weighty is this evidence that Mr. Scrivener, who once, as he admits, fought strongly for the common Greek reading, now abandons it in favour of that presented by the Vulgate.1 A few years ago there was no Greek authority to be found for the Vulgate reading crebro, ‘ washing often,’ in Mark vii. 3. Some m s s . of the old Latin version and two or three ancient translations so read it, but the Greek universally gave iTvypfj, variously rendered, ‘ with the fist ’ or ‘ up to the elbow.’ 2 The recently discovered Codex Sinaiticus, however, has irvKva, and on the strength of this single authority Tischendorf in his eighth edition prints it so in agreement with the Vulgate. Instances of this kind might be multiplied to a great extent. One more shall be given, of a reading not yet adopted by critical editors because not found in a single Greek m s ., yet proved to have been widely spread in the first centuries. In 1 John iv. 3 we read, ‘ omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum.’ Instead of gui solvit, or its equivalent o Xvei, our Greek m s s . have without exception o fjurj ofjLoXoyei, ‘ which does not confess.’ But Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian (vii. 32), in proof of the ignorance of Nestorius in regard to ancient writers and interpreters, states that the heresiarch was unaware that in the catholic Epistle of S. John there was written in the ancient copies, 1 Sia? Lectures on the Text o f the New Testament (p. 130), 1875. 2 The English Protestant translators, perhaps adopting the suggestion of Erasmus and Beza that the original Greek might have been irvKvjj, in this case agree with the Vulgate. See Preface to Rhemes Testament, 1582. 86 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE

Every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God, o n iv ry kolOoXlkj} Imdvvov yiypairro Iv rots TraXaio'us avnypd<\>ois on irav TTvevjjLa o Xvei t o v ’Irjcrovv aito t o v ®eov o v k icrTL. The Abbe Le Hir has good ground for maintaining this to be incontestably the best reading. It is of course not pretended that St. Jerome’s revision is absolutely perfect, or even that we have not in some few cases the means of improving it. Moreover, the official text of the Vulgate is not an exact reproduction in minute particulars of the version as it left St. Jerome’s hands. The preface to the Vatican edition expressly admits the existence of slight defects which were pur­ posely left untouched. Yet enough has been said to show that in addition to the veneration due to it as the authoritative standard of faith and morals, the Vulgate claims a critical value of the highest order, which it is hardly possible to over-estimate. Having completed the revision of the New Testament, St. Jerome turned his attention to the old Latin version of the Septuagint, and began with the Psalms as most important for the liturgical use of the Church. This he revised according to the Greek, but somewhat hastily (licet cursim in magna parte correxerim). This was handed over to the Pope in 383. S. Damasus ordered its immediate introduction into the Roman Liturgy, and under the name of the Roman Psalter it passed to the other Italian Churches. At a later time, when St. Jerome had procured Origen s Hexaplar edition of the Septuagint, he again amended the Psalms in a more thorough way, and this second and improved edition, called the Gallican Psalter, as it first found acceptance in Gaul, is that now read in the Vulgate and in the Breviary.1 The rest of his revision of the Itala does not concern us here, as it formed no part of the Vulgate, and, indeed, it has entirely perished except that of the book of Job. 1 The Roman Psalter is, however, preserved in the Ambrosian or Milan Rite, and is still in use at St. Peter’s in Rome, and was also used in the Chapel o f the Doges, at Venice, until 1808. It is not entirely excluded from the Roman Missal, and traces of it remain in the Breviary, as in the Venite exultemus, or the ninety-fourth Psalm, at Matins. A full account of the various forms assumed by the Latin Psalter may be found in Liruti, Apparatus ad jurisprudentiam pres- sertim Eccles., vol. ii., dissert, xvii., Patavini, 1793. A list of the passages in the Roman Breviary which differ from the readings of the Vulgate is given in the Analecta juris Pontif., Livraison xii. p. 1846. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 87 Daring this work, however, St. Jerome had further improved himself in Hebrew, with the assistance of a baptized Jew, and had matured a plan for translating from the Hebrew all the Old Testament books which were extant in that language. Meanwhile, after the death of St. Damasus, he had left Rome, and after travelling in Palestine and visiting the Holy Places he finally settled down in his monastery at Bethlehem. Christians had often felt the difficulty of meeting the Jews in contro­ versy with arguments drawn from the Septuagint, when their opponents could answer that the passages brought against them either did not exist in the original text or had some other sense. Recourse had been frequently had to St. Jerome for explanation in difficulties of this kind, and now he resolved to satisfy the repeated demands of his friends, and put into their hands an exact transla­ tion of the Hebrew Bible as it was then read by the Jews. This was a very different undertaking from that of his revision of the New Testament and of the Psalms. It was not promoted by any ecclesiastical authority, and to many even who had approved his former works the plan seemed unprofitable and dangerous. For the moment St. Jerome stood in an isolated position and seemed out of harmony with the traditions of the Church.1 His constant appeal to the Hebraica Veritas and his apparent disparagement of the Septuagint were attributed to the Rabbinical influence of his new teachers, and his work had to be carried on in the face of much opposition. Each book seems to have been extracted from him by the pressure of his various personal friends, as the prefaces to the several portions of his translation testify. It was begun in 390, and full fifteen years elapsed before its completion ( a .d . 405). First he translated the four books of Kings and edited them with his famous Prologus Galeatus or armed preface, by which he guarded himself against the attacks which he expected. Then followed the book of Job, then the Prophets and the Psalter, which last alone of all his translations from the Hebrew has not found a place in the Vulgate. Towards the end of 393, after an interruption from a serious illness, he 1 Kaulen, Geschichte, p. 167. 88 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE published the Salomonic writings, and during the next two years the books of Esdras, Paralipomena, and Genesis. In 404 appeared the remainder of the Penta­ teuch ; and lastly, in the same and in the following year, Josue, Judges, Ruth, and Esther, concluding with the deutero-canonical portions of Daniel and Esther, as well as the books of Tobias and Judith. Thus the only books of the Old Testament which were neither translated nor revised by the saint are Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Maccabees, and these have come down to us unaltered as they were originally translated from the Septuagint in the earliest age of the Church. The qualifications which St. Jerome possessed for the task which he thus happily completed in regard to the translation from the Hebrew are sufficiently obvious from what has already been said. He had long been master of Hebrew, and latterly had acquired a knowledge of Chaldee. Hebrew manuscripts were brought to him by stealth from the synagogues by friendly Jews. He had access to the best copies of the Septuagint and to Origen’s Hexaplar, of which only fragments now remain. The Hexaplar gave him the assistance of literal trans­ lations from Hebrew into Greek, those of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus and others besides. He was well acquainted with the geography and natural history of the Holy Land, and was living in the midst of Biblical scenes. Moreover, no one was more versed in the exegetical writings of the Fathers who had preceded him, whilst he was able to derive undoubted advantage from the traditional explanations of the learned Jews whom he kept at his side. The rules and methods which he observed in his translation he has himself explained. He did not trouble himself to preserve the mere form of words, but endeavoured to seize the sense and express it in simple, natural Latin. ‘ Non verba in scripturis consideranda sed sensus * was his constant maxim. He evidently had before his eyes the permanent as well as the actual needs of the Church. Not to give offence to his own generation he adhered, when he could do so, to the familiar expressions of the old Latin, as he says in his preface to Ecclesiastes, ‘ de Hebraeo transferens magis me AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 89

Septuaginta interpretum consuetudini coaptavi, in his dumtaxat quo non multum ab hebraicis discrepabant.’ He may have shown this leaning towards the traditional readings rather out of deference to the opinions of others than from his own judgment, and therefore he sometimes suggests a different interpretation in his commentaries to that which he had adopted in his version. The opposi­ tion which he had to encounter exercised in more ways than one a beneficial control over his tendency to put too much trust in his Rabbinical masters. In the rendering of passages which were capable of more than one ex­ planation, St. Jerome took pains to choose words which would not exclude any interpretation conveyed by the Septuagint, while in difficult phrases he has often alone among ancient translators hit upon the true sense, and the Lexicons of Gesenius and Furst constantly bear witness to the originality and ingenuity of his renderings. The restraint which he put upon himself in matter of style is evident from a comparison of the even and natural language of the Vulgate with the rhetorical and artificial style in which he habitually wrote himself. It is in fact generally admitted that 4 he proceeded on the soundest principles ’ and ‘ produced the best and noblest work of the kind of which antiquity can boast.’ The work made its way in the Church by sheer force of its intrinsic worth. The opposition to it at first was not confined to the learned like Ruffinus, but it gave offence to the ears of simple men who had a dislike to all novelty. An African bishop read St. Jerome’s new version of Jonas in church, but there was so great a disturbance among his congregation when they heard the word ivy (kedera) instead of the well-known gourd (cucurbita), that he was forced to return to the old version. It was this same love for the old accustomed words that proved an effectual obstacle to the reception of St. Jerome’s translation of the Psalms, and led to the retention of the old Gallican Psalter. By degrees, how­ ever, the excellence of the version became known. Even in St. Jerome’s lifetime a Greek priest, Sophronius, had thought it worth while to translate the Psalms and the Prophets from the Latin into Greek. Lucinius Basticus, 90 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE in Spain, before mentioned, sent six shorthand-writers to procure a number of copies. In about two hundred years after the saint’s death the new version was held in as great esteem as the old. In a . d . 604 S. Gregory the Great, who used it for his commentaries on Job, declared that the Apostolic See made use of both versions,1 and a few years later St. Isidore of Seville (630) testifies that St. Jerome’s Bible was in general use throughout the Church, ‘ cujus editione omnes ecclesiae usquequaque utuntur,’ and in the eighth century Venerable Bede speaks of it simply as ‘ our edition,’ and now the Itala had ceased to be copied and fell into such disuse that a perfect copy of the Old Testament cannot be made up from all the fragments that have been hitherto discovered. In course of time, however, there was danger lest the new text should fare as badly at the hands of copyists as the old. Transcribers would from confusion of memory or from ignorance mix up the two versions together. They have even copied some chapters of the one and some of the other text into the same book. But the ecclesiastical authorities jealously guarded the Church’s treasure, and each age gave rise to special revisions or correctoria to check the threatened evil. Charlemagne displayed great zeal in preserving the purity of the Bible, and employed Alcuin in executing a revision of the Vulgate, of which beautiful specimens of the ninth and and tenth centuries exist. One of these so-called Bibles of Charlemagne is preserved in the British Museum. In the eleventh century Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canter­ bury, and St. Peter Damian; and in the twelfth, St. Stephen, Abbot of Citeaux, and others were occupied in similar works. To these efforts succeeded the correc- toria, which were lists drawn up of the usually occurring errors, and their corrections, something like the Hebrew masora, with critical and grammatical notes. The most famous is that of the Paris University. Each of the religious orders had a correctorium of their own. Hugh of Santa Cara was the author of that used by the Do- 1 Novam vero translationem dissero: sed cum probationis causa exigit, nunc novam nunc veterem per testimonia assumo ut, quia sedes apostolica, cui Deo auctore praesideo, utraque utitur, mei quoque labor studii ex utraque fulciatur. — Ep. ad Leandr. c. v. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 91 minicans. The Franciscans and Carthusians had others.1 But in spite of all such praiseworthy attempts at super­ vision and correction the mistakes of copyists were inevitable. It could scarcely have been otherwise with a book so much in use as the Latin Bible without a perpetual miracle. The invention of the printing-press would have supplied in the fifteenth century more effectual means of securing the desired uniformity, had it not been that other sources of error, already mentioned, intervened for the moment to increase rather than to remedy the already existing variety of copies. It is, then, to the Council of Trent and the Roman Pontiffs that we owe that solemn authentication and final revision of the Latin Bible which alone can give to us an infallible assurance of its fidelity, purity, and sanctity. The authentic Vulgate is, in a word, an edition of the Written Word of God, whose origin, character, and high sanction justify the language of St. Francis of Sales in claiming for it our devout veneration as ‘ la saincte version latine . . . que sa divine majesty a canonisee et sanctifide par le Concile de Trente.’ 2

It now only remains to say a few words on the history of the Douay version, perhaps the most im­ portant of all translations made from the Vulgate since the Council of Trent, and from which the text in the present edition is derived. This version was one of the first fruits of the English Seminary founded at Douay under the direction of Cardinal Allen in 1568, and bears traces of the peculiar circumstances which gave it birth. Much of the mischief done in England towards destroying the faith of the people had been effected by Bibles ‘ falsely, corruptly, and deceitfully translated.’ W e must not judge of the character of these Protestant versions by that of King James’s Bible now in use. The first Bible, that of Tyndale in Henry vm .’s time, was supplied with a number of brief and pointed notes insinuating false doctrine at every turn,

1 Some of these proved o f great service to Cardinal Carafa, and the commis­ sion appointed for the revision of the Vulgate in the sixteenth century. 2 Traite de VAmour de Dieu, livre ix. chap. xii. and x. 6. 92 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE and making scandalous attacks upon the religious orders. The notes of Matthew’s Bible (1537) were still more malicious. Cranmer’s version, though without the offen­ sive notes, was not more orthodox than those of his predecessors, whilst the really popular Bible in the hands of the people during the reign of Elizabeth, and far more read than all others, was the Geneva Bible, pub­ lished by the Puritans abroad at the end of the reign of Queen Mary (1557), and first printed in England in 1561. ‘ The brief annotations which crowd the margin of the New Testament of 1557 will find favour,’ says Mr. Scrivener, 4 with none save the admirers of the theo­ logical school then predominant at Geneva. . . . In general they comprise a sort of running commentary on the sacred writers strongly impregnated with the views of Calvin and Beza, which are set forth in a tone as positive and uncompromising as can well be imagined. When we reflect that the Geneva version was the family Bible in England for two generations after its first ap­ pearance, we may conceive how powerful an engine these notes became in the hands of that party which in the next century laid the throne and the altar in the dust.’ 1 To meet this evil and to provide explanations of the Written Word of God in accordance with Catholic teaching, the founders of the English Seminary resolved, during the fiercest heat of the Elizabethan persecution, to publish an exact and literal rendering of the authentic Vulgate with suitable notes.2 The New Testament was

1 Supplement to the authorised English version, 1845. Introd. p. 93. 2 A vernacular version was much needed for the use of the missionary clergy. In a letter to Dr. Vendeville, 16th Sept. 1578 (in the archives o f the English college at Rome), giving an account of his various plans, Cardinal Allen makes special mention of the disadvantages to which priests were put in controversy with heretical ministers, from the fact that Catholics were accustomed in their schools to the exclusive use of the Latin text of Scripture. Their adversaries had at their fingers' ends all the passages which seemed to tell in their favour, and the plausible facility with which they interlarded their discourses with Biblical phrases was apt to deceive simple and ignorant people; whereas the Catholic had on the spur of the moment to mentally translate his Vulgate into the vernacular, and often, naturally enough, with some hesitation and awkward­ ness. To obviate this difficulty Allen announces to his correspondent that he had already instituted at the college classes of scriptural disputations in English, and for the same end was contemplating an English Catholic version. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 93 begun during the temporary removal of the college to Rheims. Dr. Gregory Martin, formerly one of the scholars of St. John’s College, Oxford, and afterwards tutor to the family of the Duke of Norfolk, who had passed over to Douay in 1570, was the principal trans­ lator. He was assisted by Dr. Richard Bristow, the author of the Notes, formerly a fellow of Exeter College, Dr. Reynolds, from New College, and Dr. Allen, after­ wards Cardinal. Dr. Martin died in October 1582, a few months after putting the last hand to the New Testament, which was published at Rheims that same year. The publication of the Old Testament was un­ avoidably delayed until 1609, when it was printed at Douay, with the annotations of Dr. Worthington. The translators aimed as far as possible at making their version an exact reproduction of the Vulgate, regardless of elegancies of construction, preferring in many cases to merely clothe a Latin word with an English termination rather than to run the risk of a departure from their text. For those days this was wisely done.1 This Douay Bible was the edition generally used and quoted by English Catholic writers until the time of Bishop Challoner, whose works form an important epoch in our literature. This learned and saintly bishop, finding from the altered circumstances of the times and the gradual change of the language that the style of the original Douay version had become antiquated, undertook a thorough revision, almost amounting to a new translation of the text, and at the same time supplied new and more brief annotations. Perhaps some of the vigour of the old translation has been lost in the process, and scholars may regret many of the alterations, but a change of some kind was certainly needed to render the version suitable for general use in the pulpit or in books of devotion.2 The Old Testament

1 Mr. Scrivener, after saying all that could be said against the translation, is compelled to add, ‘ Yet in justice it must be observed that no case of wilful perversion of Scripture has ever been brought home to the Rhemish translators.’ Supplement to the Authorised Version, p. 98. 2 From time to time entirely independent translations have been attempted, such as the Testament of Dr. Nary, 1718; that of Dr. Witham, the President of Douay College, in 1730; and the Four Gospels by Dr. Lingard, in 1836 ; but none of these have gained general acceptance, or, with the exception perhaps of Dr. Witham's, had any influence on the current editions. 94 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE as revised by Bishop Challoner in 1750 has been con­ stantly reprinted with little material alteration since that date. But the New Testament underwent considerable changes in the successive editions which appeared during his own lifetime, his third edition (1752) differing, ac­ cording to Dr. Cotton, from his first (1749) in more than two thousand places. Subsequent editors have occasion­ ally reprinted one or the other of these texts, but more often have adopted them as the basis of further revisions until there is very little more than the name in our current Bibles to connect them with the famous versions of Rheims and Douay from which they all claim to have sprung. The text of the present volumes in regard to the Old Testament is a reprint of that of Challoner.1 The New Testament also, in the main, follows the third edition of Challoner, but apparently with some admixture of render­ ings derived from a Bible known as Dr. Troy’s (1794), which was prepared with his episcopal approbation by a priest of Dublin, the Rev. Bernard Macmahon. This text has been intentionally reproduced without any altera­ tion beyond the correction of a few obvious misprints. The notes were originally compiled by the Rev. George Haydock. This industrious scholar was born in Lanca­ shire in 1774, educated in his youth at Douay, and sub­ sequently, after the breaking up of the college at the French Revolution, at Crook Hall, where he was ordained priest in 1798. He began to collect materials for his annotated edition of the Bible when on the mission at Ugthorpe, near Whitby, in 1808. The first sheets were printed in 1811 at Manchester, and issued in fortnightly numbers, the whole work being completed in 1814. The notes of the Old Testament were put together from various sources by Mr. Haydock unassisted. The anno­ tations to the New Testament were chiefly prepared by Mr. Rayment and by some of the Benedictine Fathers of Ampleforth. The method adopted in the selection and compilation of the notes and the general plan of the pub-

1 Cotton’s Rhemes and Doway, Oxford, 1855. Compare Fr. Newman’s article on the Douay version in the Rambler of July 1859, reprinted in Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical, 1874. AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 95 lication Mr. Haydock thus describes : * In this edition of the Holy Scriptures we shall adhere to the text of the Venerable and Right Reverend Dr. Richard Challoner: and we shall insert all his notes either verbatim or at least shall give their full sense, placing his signature, Ch., at the end. In like manner, when any additional observa­ tion is made, the author from whom it is taken will be specified either at length or by an abbreviation which will be easily understood. The other commentators most frequently consulted will be thus marked—B., Bristow; C., Calmet; D., Du Hamel; E., Estius; M., Menochius; P., Pastorini or Walmsley; T., Tirinus ; W ., Worthing­ ton ; Wi., Witham. We shall also sometimes insert a few original observations, or such, at least, as we cannot easily trace to their real authors, either through forget­ fulness or because we have adopted some alteration or have received them from some learned friends whose names we are not at liberty to mention. These will be marked with the letter H. With respect to the other notes, except those of Bishop Challoner, which we shall generally give at length, we shall deem it sufficient to express' the sense. When the very words are preserved, or are of such importance as to require this distinction, we shall denote them by inverted commas.’ After Haydock’s Bible had been reprinted at Dublin (1822), Edinburgh (1847 and 1852), and New York (1852), Dr. Husenbeth undertook, with the express approbation of all the Vicars-Apostolic of England, to prepare an abridged edition, which was printed in London in 1853. Dr. Husenbeth added nothing new on his part, but simply omitted certain quotations from oriental versions or references to classical antiquity which he considered superfluous, and a few annotations of a con­ troversial character which could only have had a local or temporary interest. This edition of Dr. Husenbeth has been made the basis of the present revision. The notes have been collated with those of the unabridged edition. A few further omissions have been made, and new matter has been substituted from various modern sources on the plan of the original work. The principal aim of the original editor of this work was to supply the reader with 96 THE LATIN VULGATE AS THE doctrinal and moral reflections and explanations of a use­ ful and practical character. His plan did not lead him to enter largely into matters of critical or historical diffi­ culty. This plan has been adhered to in the present edition. It is, however, scarcely necessary to remark that during the last fifty years there have been large additions made to our stores of information available for the illustration of the literature and history of the Bible. The investigations carried on by recent travellers and explorers in the Holy Land have resulted in many valuable discoveries and identifications of places long lost sight of. The excavations in Babylonia and Assyria have brought to light a hitherto unknown language and history which throw much light on the books of the pro­ phets and the chronology of the Kings of Israel and Juda. During the same period the discovery and deciphering of many old versions and manuscripts have consider­ ably added to our knowledge of the text of the Greek Testament, and the study of comparative philology has not been without fruit in illustrating the Hebrew books. A ll this has necessitated a revision and correction of certain portions of Mr. Haydock’s notes which dealt with such matters. The new annotations have been indicated in every case by their insertion within square brackets. The sources from which they are derived have generally been specified at length. Those from Archbishop Kenrick’s Bible, and from the commentary of Loch and Reischl, are simply marked with the initials K and L R . In the writing of Hebrew words in English letters, the method of vocalisation, now generally adopted, according to the Masoretic system, has been substituted in this edition for that of Mr. Haydock, who had followed the so-called unpointed system. The references to parallel passages of scripture, which were found to be occasionally incorrect, have been also carefully revised throughout. A t the end of the second volume there has been appended an Index to the Harmony of the Gospels, and lastly the Prologus Galeatus of St. Jerome, and the series of letters which he composed from time to time as prefaces to the books of Scripture translated or revised by him. It was thought that these short treatises, which have always AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE CHURCH 97 found a place in the standard editions of the Vulgate, but which have not hitherto been translated into English, would form a useful supplement to this edition of the Bible, and help to further explain what has been said on the history of the Latin Vulgate.

G SOME CURIOUS TRANSLATIONS OF MEDIAEVAL LATIN1

I t will be generally allowed that there has prevailed for a time in this country a certain disregard of mediaeval literature. It would even appear as if some of our writers of repute, keenly alive to the delicate minutiae of classical scholarship, have yet been careless of accuracy or shame­ less of ignorance as to the customs, religion, or speech of their Christian forefathers. This lack of interest in the ages of Popery may have had its origin in ecclesiastical prejudices no longer rife, but nevertheless the conse­ quences are still felt in our public libraries, in our historic literature, and generally in our available means of study of that period. So that a want of familiarity with the language and thought of mediaeval Christendom— with the Latin Bible, the Latin ritual, the technical termin­ ology of charter, law, or theology— leads occasionally to curious oversights or mistakes in quarters where such defective knowledge might least be expected. A few instances may be instructive or even entertaining. It has taken two generations of our most learned scholars to discover one of the commonest meanings of one of the commonest words in the mouth of a mediaeval librarian. Dr. Jamieson, the Scottish lexicographer, had occasion in his history of the Culdees (1811) to examine an ancient list of books, among which appears pars bibliothecce. The Doctor, thinking perhaps of the great modern Benedictine collections, remarks: ‘ The next work, of which they (the Culdees) had only a part, may have been a Bibliotheca Patrum, or a collection of the writings of the Fathers.’ Thirty years later Thomas Thomson, re-editing this list very carefully in the Charter Book of the Priory of St. Andrews, which he prepared for the Bannatyne Club, writes despairingly and jauntily : 1 The Scotsman, July 28, 1895. TRANSLATIONS OF MEDLEVAL LATIN 99

‘ Pars bibliothecce, which may mean anything.’ In 1860, Cosmo Innes, by a happy guess, for it is hardly more than a guess, at last reaches the truth. ‘ Part of a collec­ tion,’ he writes, ‘ called the bibliotheca, probably the Vulgate of Jerome.’ It is, however, no question of ‘ probability/ Bibliotheca was the commonly accepted name for the Bible throughout the Middle Ages, from the days of St. Jerome himself. ‘ Habeo bibliothecam in mea bibliotheca,’ was an old, if feeble, joke. In ancient monastic or college library catalogues the Bibliothecce were often followed by Originalia, writings of the primitive fathers; and this term, too, has perplexed translators, who have described such libraries as possess­ ing the ‘ original works ’ of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, etc., as if the autographs of these writers were there pre­ served. Similarly, Rosarium, the title of more than one standard mediseval work, has been taken for ‘ a set of beads.’ In another department, it has been argued, from the fact of a priest having been convicted of bigamia in an ecclesiastical court, that the Church must have then regarded him as at least entitled to one wife, whereas the offence which he had committed was that of bigamia spiritualis, the holding of two incompatible benefices. There is, however, nothing in the form of derivation of these words to set an unsuspecting student upon his guard. It is quite otherwise in the case of certain theo­ logical terms, where an elementary knowledge of Roman Catholic doctrine, if not a little common-sense, should have kept the translator straight. An excellent classical scholar, the translator of Homeric Hymns and editor of Latin Unseens, has, in a recent history of early Scottish education, told us that in the ancient Grammar School of Aberdeen, the boy, on first entering the school, must prostrate himself, and in a short prayer salute Christ and ‘ the Virgin, the equal of G od ’ (Deiparam virginem). The same extraordinary error had been made before him by Mr. James Grant in his H istory o f the Burgh Schools (1876). The amazing thing here is, not merely that these scholars were unaware that Deipara, ‘ the Mother of God,’ was used in Latin Christendom as the exact equivalent of theotokos, but that they did not suspect 100 SOME CURIOUS TRANSLATIONS

that they were putting into the mouth of educated Catholics a blasphemy which any old Irish apple-woman would repudiate with horror. Less serious and more amusing are the many blunders which disfigure the translation added by Mr. James Paterson, the historian of Ayrshire and its families, to his edition of the Obit Book o f the Church o f S t John Baptist, A yr, 1848. The student of the manners and customs of old Scotland may well be surprised on read­ ing here that a certain John Brown, burgess of Ayr, bequeathed a sum of money ‘ to the appointed old leprous scholars daily occupied and exercised in poor schools.’ The Quixotic notion of selecting aged lepers for the post of either pupils or pupil-teachers in the parish schools might at least have suggested to Mr. Paterson a closer attention to grammatical construction and punctuation. In the same paragraph the aforesaid John Brown wills that there be purchased for the poor, according to the translator, ‘ a hard cheese,’ instead of e a stone (weight) of cheese,’ and ‘ venison to the extent of thirty-two pence.’ Cerevisia or cervisia may not have been found by Mr. Paterson in his school Caesar or Cicero, but it never­ theless always was and is good Latin for ‘ beer ’ ; and Mr. Paterson, thinking only of the more familiar cervus, ‘ a stag,’ made a random shot at ‘ venison.’ Into this kind of inexcusable error, a recent historian of the Scottish Church (1894) has fallen rather badly. In an attempted English summary of the Statuta Ecclesice Scoticance he makes the rulers of the ancient Church appear as eccentric in their legislation, as the burgesses of Ayr seem to have been in dealing with lepers. According to this historian, the Synod of Aberdeen forbade ‘ chantings and choruses ’ at funerals, on the plea of such things being out of sympathy with the mourners. Now, the reader may think that ‘ chantings and choruses,’ if conducted with decorum, as, say, at the Ammergau Passion Play, may be not at all inappropriate for the expression of grief. But if he turns to the Latin text, he will find that what the Synod prohibits are cantus et choreas (‘ songs and dances *)— quite another matter. The same Synod, if we are to trust the translator, strangely enacts that neither OF MEDIAEVAL LATIN 101

* wailings nor plays ’ are to be permitted in churches or cemeteries. ‘ Wailings’ at least might be tolerated if anywhere in a cemetery; and even mystery-plays have been sometimes acted without offence in churches. But the Synod was not thinking of either. It very properly interdicts luctas et ludos, * wrestling matches and games.’ Farther, the Church historian translates persona ‘ par­ ishioner,’ when it should be ‘ parson’ ; miles, ‘ soldier,’ when it should be ‘ knight ’ ; and substitutes ‘ linen for the ears and nostrils’ in the place of the ‘ besmearing’ (linitio) of those organs [with spittle] in the ceremony of baptism. % On the other hand, a different class of errors seems to proceed from the little knowledge which is proverbially dangerous ; and would indicate in the perpetrators— if we were not sure of their solid learning and high character— the weakness of parading an up-to-date acquaintance with Roman phraseology. A mild and inoffensive example of this tendency appears in a recent translation of Boece’s Vitce Episcoporum Aberdonensium, published under the auspices of the New Spalding Club. Boece commends some worthy Dominicans inasmuch as they ‘ expound the Scriptures, act as professors (profit entur), and preach.’ Passing by this very simple and ancient meaning of profiteri, demanded by the context, the learned editor goes out of his way to render it ‘ take the triple vows of a monk,’ and to add in a note that the word ‘ in low Latin means to take the vow of obedience, chastity, and poverty.’ Another editor for the same Club publishes a welcome translation of the Chartulary of St. Nicholas of Aberdeen, but here Homer again nods. One Angus Adamson, it appears, endowing the altar of St. Michael, requires the chaplain to celebrate certain masses and to say other prayers besides— etiam alias preces fundet (let us suppose an occasional De Profundis)— for the departed souls. The translator, whose work deserves to be mentioned with all respect, carefully looks up in his abridgment of Du Cange the word fundare, and learns that it is used for fundere or profundere. There is nothing very unusual in the expression ‘ to pour forth prayers,’ and if he had stopped here all would have been 102 SOME CURIOUS TRANSLATIONS well. But in the same lexicon he turns to profundere, and finds that it is used for the rinsing out of the chalice with wine and water by the priest, at what is called the second ablutions, after the consumption of the sacred elements. So he adds in a note the startling information that ‘ what is stipulated for here are prayers at the taking of the ablutions’— a notion absolutely groundless and unmeaning. A valuable version of the Vitce antiquce Sanctorum Scotice is similarly distinguished by the un­ warranted and irrelevant introduction of a recently defined dogma of the Papal Church in defiance of the plain meaning of the text. An ancient biographer of St. Magnus praises him for the continence of his married life and his ‘ inborn chastity,’ exclaiming, Quam decora et desideranda sit nativa castitas, which his translator renders, ‘ How fair and winsome is the immaculate conception ! ’ The interpretation of abbreviations and symbols also gives rise to some strange misunderstandings. It is perhaps hopeless to attempt to combat the long estab­ lished and popular use of the letters IHS to signify Jesu hominum salvator. This interpretation may now claim for itself a prescriptive right. But for more than a dozen centuries Ihs, Ihu, Ihm stood in Christian litera­ ture for the first two and the last letters respectively of Ihesus, Ihesu, and Ihesum according to the almost universal spelling of the Latin Church; the H no doubt deriving its origin from the Greek form, which in uncial m s s . and ancient inscriptions, was written IHC. There was in old times at St. Paul’s, London, a fraternity founded in honour of the ‘ Name of IH U .’ When the old spelling was forgotten, an arbitrary form of words was invented to suit the initials. But the excuse of established usage cannot be so pleaded for the very novel interpreta­ tion of the D.O.M. (Deo Opt. Max.) suggested by an accomplished critic and scholar, the editor of the tractates of Ninian Winzet for the Scottish Text Society. This reverend gentleman prints the mysterious letters as he found them on Winzet’s monument, and in a note hazards the bold conjecture that ‘ the letters D.O.M. probably signify “ Datur omnibus mori.” ’ These few specimens, illustrating from various points OF MEDIAEVAL LATIN 103 of view the pitfalls which lie in the path of the novice in mediaeval studies, might be easily multiplied. They have been purposely selected from the works of grave authors who are masters in their own special line of research. Some apology, therefore, is due to these writers for venturing to bring into any connection with them here the author of The Red and White Booh o f Menzies (1894). For though this gentleman signs himself a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, exhibits his portrait as a frontis­ piece, and places the name of her Majesty at the head of the list of subscribers to his book, the work can hardly be taken seriously. His translations may be a practical joke on the part of some enemy ; or his compositor may have been insane. Yet, if only as curiosities of the printing press, it may be permitted to give some examples. The sayings that death to a saint is the gate of life, or remember you must die, are sufficiently trite whether in Latin or English; but this is the way in which our antiquary translates Sancti mors janua vitce est; memento mori: ‘ A saintly death lives in the living memory of the dead.’ In reference to some ancestress of a previously mentioned founder, the words Atavia dicti conditoris are rendered, ‘ Alas, her death is chronicled.’ A monumental inscrip­ tion set up by the printer thus— Q u i d . q u i d . f i t . s i n e , p i n d e . e s t . p a c c . a t v . m . is interpreted by the antiquary’s evil genius, ‘ Verily, verily, faith will bring peace.’ It may be conjectured that the Latin, so far as it is Latin, is meant to represent the words of St. Paul (Rom. xiv. 23): * Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.’ V i e v . & v i d e t e a .d . i n d i . may be some chronological conundrum, but its decipherment and translation in the Red and White Book —* Have power and preach of the death of Christ ’— is as bewildering as the maddest fancy of Alice in Wonderland. But to return to reason. It is rumoured that a com­ petent scholar has in hand the preparation of a lexicon or glossary of Low Latin, based exclusively on Scottish charters and records. If this be true, it is good news. Few private students can be expected to provide them­ selves with the seven quarto volumes of Du Cange; and the wretchedly inadequate compendium, compiled by Maigne d’Arnis for the Abb6 Migne, is often misleading. 104 TRANSLATIONS OF MEDIAEVAL LATIN

Moreover there are many words current in British or Scottish documents, words coined out of local dialects, which are not to be found in any Latin dictionary. Una petra casei need not have puzzled Mr. Paterson, but for cudrus or cudremus casei, which has exactly the same meaning, he would search Du Cange in vain. A portable mediaeval dictionary, at once abbreviating and supple­ menting Du Cange, and specially adapted for the student of Scottish records, would indeed be a boon for us all. JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 1470-1550 1

To many it will appear strange that a famous Scotsman’s History of Scotland, written in Latin in 1521, should have remained for three hundred and seventy years with­ out a translator. The work has many points of national and popular interest. It was written years before John Knox and the Reformation gave a new character to his countrymen and a new colour to their history, by a learned Divine of European reputation, devotedly attached to the Church of Rome, and yet a thorough Scot, who scarcely wrote a chapter which does not bear witness to his genuine love of country and home. John Major, too, was the first man to write the chronicles of Scotland, or rather of ‘ Greater Britain,’ in a broad and independent spirit. He says, indeed, half apologetically and with some humour, that he intended to tell his story theologico ferme stylo. His pen would have refused to write in any other style. His Latin is rugged, abrupt, and concise often to obscurity, as the Latin of a professional Sententiarius might be expected to be. He cannot refrain from throwing his reflections into the form of syllogisms, and delights in closing a paragraph with a triumphant Igitur. But this is not all that he meant by the theological style. Major is not content to compile mere annals. He passes judgment upon the facts of conduct as they are presented to him. This he approves, that he disapproves. ‘ Now the manner of the Scholastics,’ he writes, in a passage quoted from his In Quartum Sententiarum by Mr. Constable, ‘ and a laudable manner it is, is this: that every man shall say freely what he thinks. . . . Aught else is unbecoming to a theologian.’ ‘ To forbid discussion,’ he says again, ‘ is to entangle men in the error of Mahomet.’ Major therefore discusses 1 The Scottish Review, January 1892, 106 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC freely the conduct of kings and prelates, the condition of the people, the tenure of land, the relation of noble to peasant, and the national characteristics generally. He has strong political opinions, and shows on some points remarkable foresight. Professor Masson has called him ‘ the first Scottish radical ’ ; and he must have stood almost alone among his countrymen in his earnest advocacy of the union of the kingdoms. It was in his belief in the unity of their destinies that he combined their history under the one title of ‘ Greater Britain.’ While the mannerisms of the theologian, the quaint language, the undercurrent of pleasant irony, combined with singular simplicity and directness, give a certain piquancy to his sufficiently original narrative, these characteristics undoubtedly render all the more difficult the task of the translator. To Mr. Archibald Constable the highest praise is due. He has spared no pains to understand his author’s way of thinking, and is perhaps the only Scotsman of the last three centuries who has read from cover to cover Major’s Commentary on the Fourth Book o f the Sentences. Readers will admire the antique flavour of his English, the neat scholarship, and the excellent taste which here go to the making of a model translation. It is not, however, the aim of the present article to pass under review the subject matter of the History as such. The main interest of the work, indeed, to many minds will consist not so much in the objective narrative as in the author’s personality and in the relation such a man as Major held to his own time and the times which followed. As a literary production its charm lies in its antiquity; and its features which most pleasantly appeal to our fancy are not those which accord best with our present modes of thought but those which are most foreign to them. M. Renan remarks in his excellent essay on Averrhoes, ‘ II ne faut pas demander au pass£ que le passd lui-meme,’ and he adds that political history is en­ nobled since we have ceased to seek from it lessons of con­ duct ; while the interest of the history of philosophy lies less perhaps in the positive instruction we can draw from it than in the picture it gives of the evolution of the human JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 107 mind. Something of this kind has apparently been felt by the editor of the present volume. The book is, at any rate, put forward not only as a curious and ancient history of Scotland, but as a picture of John Major and his school of thought. Mr. JEneas Mackay has prefixed to it a new and comprehensive biography of the author, in which his opinions, philosophical, theological, and political, are treated with some fulness. There is further added an Appendix, in which, besides a bibliography of the literary work of Major and his disciples,1 there is printed an almost complete collection of the dedications, epistles, and dialogues which serve as prefaces to his numerous publications. This article will, then, deal with Major not as an historian but as a professional schoolman, and will attempt to illustrate his character and position as a theo­ logical teacher by way of comment or criticism upon the views presented by Mr. Constable and Mr. iEneas Mackay. This is the more necessary as it had long been a tradition among Scottish writers that Major was in some sort a ‘ precursor of the Reformation,’ that his opinions were at least much influenced by the new learn­ ing, and form a transition between orthodox scholasticism and the teaching of Knox and Buchanan. Colour is given to this notion by the fact that Major held political doctrines which foreshadowed those of Buchanan, and that he stoutly maintained the ecclesiastical principles known as Gallican, placing the authority of councils above that of the Pope and generally minimising the papal powers in relation to the State. Mr. Mackay is not ready to defend quite so untenable a position. He very truly remarks that ‘ Major stands firm in the paths of the Roman and Catholic Church, and treats all devia­ tion from its doctrine as pestilent and poisonous heresy. But like the best Romanists of his age, he favours reforms within the Church and by the Church itself.’ Yet Mr. Mackay takes pains to emphasise certain passages which seem to suggest to him opinions—singular, novel, daring and suspicious, if not absolutely heterodox. Thus, Major’s language on excommunication is characterised as ‘ bold ’

1 [This bibliography was the work of Dr. Law.— E d .] 108 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC for an ecclesiastic, and it is suggested that by ‘ allowing excommunication for contumacy’ he left ‘ a loophole’ which explains ‘ how he and men of his views were tolerated.’ He is quoted, too, as ‘ condemning the multiplication of miracles,’ and asserting that ‘ miracles do not prove holiness,’ and that ‘ a vow of chastity might be a vow of the foolish virgins if it hurt the State.’ He is said to show ‘ a sceptical tendency.’ The fact that he was invited by Wolsey to take a chair in the Cardinal’s new college at Oxford shows ‘ how near he stood—and was deemed by some of his contemporaries to stand—to the parting of the ways between the mediaeval and modern plans of education.’ Finally, ‘ he may be con­ sidered,’ writes Mr. Mackay, ‘ as Ockham has also been, an unconscious precursor of the Reformation, in spite of his resting finally in all questions of faith in rigidly orthodox conclusions.’ This estimate of Major’s theo­ logical position is further implied in Mr. Mackay’s theories that Major, a secular priest, was devoted to the Franciscan order; that he belonged to the Scotist school, ‘ which separated itself from the hitherto orthodox school of Thomas Aquinas ’ ; that the Scotists, though they claimed as much as the Thomists to be orthodox, were perhaps ‘ the most vehement in their assertions of the soundness of their doctrine in order to allay suspicions ’ ; and that, in fact, the subtle Doctor himself, for certain reasons, has been ‘ looked upon with suspicion by the Church.’ Moreover, we are told, ‘ the Franciscans gener­ ally—for there were exceptions—opposed the absolute power of the Pope,’ and ‘ their doctrine of evangelical poverty cut at the roots as has been well pointed out by Mr. Owen, both of the temporal power and the excessive wealth of the prelates,’ etc. ‘ No one,’ says Mr. Mackay, * accepted more completely than Major this doctrine.’ Now, seeing that John Major is the single genuine Scottish schoolman whom Scotland can boast of—for there is far too much doubt about the nationality of Duns Scotus to claim him, as Major does, for a countryman1— Mr. Mackay has started or revived a question of con- 1 Mackenzie, without sufficient authority, makes John de Bassolis, the favourite pupil of Scotus, to be also a Scotsman. JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 109 siderable interest. To some, perhaps, his view of Major’s position will appear to rob his life and character of their greatest charm. For Major has been certainly regarded, especially by Roman Catholics, as a typical representative of the pre-reformation schoolman, a good and solid specimen of the old-fashioned orthodoxy; a man who learnt as little from Erasmus as from Luther, and who as a Catholic rather lagged behind than marched with the times; an honest, amiable, and genial professor, of the highest moral character, who, indeed, keenly felt the ecclesiastical abuses prevalent in his time, and, after the manner of his class, spoke out his mind clearly and strongly, but whose loyalty to his church and creed was untainted with the least suspicion of a leaning towards the methods or ideas of the New Learning. In any case we ought to know more of the man and his work, and get our knowledge direct from his books. W e all understand something of Luther and Calvin, Erasmus and Colet, for— different as they are—their ideas live, and have helped to make our age what it is. But between ourselves and the scholastics of Major’s kind there is a wider gulf—a gulf which parts them mentally, in a very marked degree, from even their own natural successors, the Tridentine schoolmen of the succeeding generation. Major, therefore, if only as an intellectual fossil, a unique Scottish specimen from certain strata of European thought, deserves reverent study from all theological antiquaries. But, first of all, it is only fair to set his character free from any prejudices which might be created in the reader’s mind if the criticisms, just referred to, were left unexplained. Major’s political liberalism—the only matter in which he was liberal at all—was essentially the liberalism of the Middle Ages. His theories on popular rights were, as Mr. Hume Brown, in his life of Buchanan, has sufficiently indicated, in substantial agreement with the doctrines of Aquinas, Scotus, Gerson, and John of Salisbury. There is no need to seek for them in the more revolutionary ideas of Ockham or of Marsiglio of Padua, nor were they so peculiar to Major that Buchanan must be supposed to have derived his own theories from the master whom he 110 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC despised. It is no paradox to say, also, that Major’s restricted views of papal supremacy were a further proof of the rather antiquated conservatism which seems generally to have distinguished his theology. These Gallican views came to the front as an almost necessary outcome of the weakness and confusion of the central authority during the great schism and the quarrels be­ tween rival Popes. The attempt to establish a sort of parliamentary government by way of periodical* councils as the ruling power of the Church proved a lamentable failure. The Council of Basle, by a decree, discarded by Rome, in vain declared that councils were above the Pope; and, in the reaction which followed the practical victory of the Papacy, the views of the Conciliar or Gallican party were almost confined to France. Major held to the old doctrine, not because Ockham taught it, but as he says, because it was the doctrine of his university, of all France, and of the Council of Basle. There was nothing either singular or novel in his teaching on this matter. It was the teaching of Gerson before him and of Bossuet after him. Practically, it amounted to very little. Next to the authority of Scripture, Major puts the decrees of the P ope,‘ which have passed through fire and water,’ and he maintains, against the opinions of many divines, the infallibility of the canonisation of saints, which rests upon papal definitions. With regard to evangelical poverty it has not been shown that Major ever let drop a word which was not strictly in accordance with the Catholic spirit. Other orders besides the Franciscans made vows of poverty, and such vows must necessarily have been defended by Major, who knew well enough how to distinguish between evangelical precept and counsel. He may have admired the Franciscans, but he preferred the Carthusians, whose life he expressly extols as the ideal of Christian perfection. The Franciscans in their golden age, were, as a body, the most enthusiastic friends of the poor and the oppressed which the world has yet seen. A fanatical party among them, called the ‘ Spiritual Franciscans ’ or ‘ Zealots,’ goaded by the luxury and avarice of the papal court, pro­ claimed that Jesus and the Apostles embraced lives of JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 111 absolute poverty and had no possessions whatever. This apparently harmless proposition had its sting, which was felt by John xxn., who condemned it. The Franciscan Zealots were obstinate, and found a champion in Ockham, a theological genius, whose system of logic and meta­ physics was largely followed by Major. The disturbance for a time shook the order, which above all others was in principle committed to, and as a rule observed, the most absolute loyalty to the Holy See. But Major could have had not the least interest in, or sympathy with, the exploded cause of some rebellious friars. Indeed he— so far from accepting the so-called Franciscan doctrine— denounces the condemned proposition as formal heresy, quotes at length the constitution of John xxn., reminds his pupils that the definition of a Pope interpreting Scripture must be believed, and winds up a long argument with a word of kindly advice to his Franciscan friends, not to trouble themselves about the poverty of Christ or the affairs of Ockham, but to keep their own excellent rule (In Quart. Sent., dist. xxxviii. qu. 13 ; Cf. In IV . JEvang., fo. cxxvii. b.). Major does assert that ‘ miracles do not prove sanctity,’ and rightly so in the mind of every Catholic. In what sense he was opposed to the multiplicity of miracles we shall presently see. When, again, he declares that many excommunicated persons go to heaven, he states a fact which at least no canonist of his day would have dared to dispute; and when he ‘ allows ’ that the censure in question falls on the ‘ con­ tumacious,’ he is making no concession, nor leaving any ‘ loophole,’ but simply laying down the elements of the law as defined in every text-book. For the mere validity of excommunication, according to Catholic law, it is essential that the offence for which it is inflicted should be a grave sin against a precept of the church, peccatum externum, consummatum, conjunctum cum contumada. 4 Joined with contumacy,’ says Gury, referring to Liguori, ‘ because the principal end of this censure is to break down obstinacy.’ ‘ Does ignorance of the law excuse a man from the censure ? ’ asks Liguori. Certainly, is the answer, ‘ for how, if thus ignorant, can a man be con­ tumacious ? ’ In fact, as Major very properly remarks, an 112 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC innocent man may be, and often has been, unjustly excom­ municated. A man justly excommunicated may become contrite and restored to grace, and yet unable to get absolution before death. The uninstructed and super­ stitious laity were over fearful of the effects of a merely material sentence, and wise men—and Major in this instance was a wise man—did their best to assure the faithful that such thunderbolts were innocuous against a good conscience. Robert of Sorbonne, a stern moralist of the thirteenth century—whose name Major would have held in veneration—lecturing or preaching on the ethics of matrimony, lays down the duty of a man whose supposed marriage was, through some secret impediment, invalid. He imagines the man to plead, ‘ If I were to act as you advise, I should be cited before the judge or the bishop, and probably excommunicated.’ ‘ What of that ? 9 answers the preacher. ‘ Better any day suffer excom­ munication, with bells ringing and candles lighted, and have your body cast to the dogs, than continue to live in sin. Such excommunications would only give you the more merit.' This is quite in Major’s manner—boldly put, if you will, but thoroughly mediaeval and Catholic in spirit. Similarly, if Major is wroth against wealthy bishops squandering or alienating the patrimony of the poor, or if he denounces the robberies of usurious merchants, his language is moderate compared with that of another learned doctor, also of the thirteenth century, who could think of no remedy for this ‘ calamity’ of Christendom but that the Pope should call a General Council and with the aid of princes ‘ compel all the rich to work, either spiritually or corporally, for their daily bread, as the apostle commanded, so that there may be no more idle men.’ Thus, remarks M. Haur^au, who prints the passage [Notices et extraits de quelques M SS. Latins, vol. i., p. 171], all the world was to consist of either cures or artisans. This Christian socialist of the Middle Ages is, it appears, the Englishman, Robert of Counjon, canon of Noyon, afterwards Cardinal. For all that concerns Major’s early life in Scotland and England, his professional career in the colleges of Montaigu, Navarre, and the Sorbonne at the University of JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 113

Paris, his literary activity, especially in the sphere of Logic, the reader must go to the ample and interesting sketch, drawn up with the aid of many new sources, by Mr. Mackay. Major’s publications continued with scarcely a break for twenty-seven years, i.e. from 1503, the thirty-third year of his age, when he printed his Eaoponibilia, to 1530, in which year he dedicated his commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle to Cardinal Wolsey. But the magnum opus of his life was the Commentary on the Four Books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard. His first book went through three editions, 1510,1519, 1530 ; the second also through three, 1510, 1519, 1528. The third was printed twice, in 1517 and 1528; and the fourth passed through the press four times under the author’s eye, 1509, 1512, 1516, and 1519. For this great production the logical, physical, and metaphysical treatises were as a mere scaffolding. The exposition of Scripture was, like his History, a parergon. His great renown was founded on his teaching as a scholastic theologian. Now scholastic theology after Major’s time passed, as has been said, into a new phase, and reached indeed, so its votaries declare, its golden age in the early part of the seventeenth century. Before the end of that century it had passed its prime and lost its original productive power. It however preserved some vitality, from a bibliographical point of view, till the middle of the eighteenth century. Its shadow haunts religious houses and episcopal seminaries to this day. It is impossible to realise Major’s mental situation without some understanding of the methods and principles of his favourite and well-nigh obsolete science. W ho then were these Schoolmen, this Master of the Sentences, these Thomists and Scotists, and at what were they all aiming ? Scholastic, more properly called Speculative, theology is said to have derived its name from the schools founded in connection with religious houses in the time of Charlemagne. Theoretically it begins where positive or dogmatic theology ends. The creeds of the Church, the dogmas of the faith, are the assumed first principles upon which the theologian attempts to build up a science—the H 114 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC

queen or c goddess of sciences,’ as Gavin Douglas calls her in the dialogue prefacing one of Major’s works—by the aid of natural reason. It is true that the scholastics very commonly offer proofs of revealed dogma or even of natural religion, but this is rather to test the question, often much debated, whether such truths are, or are not, capable of rational demonstration. The system is essentially one of free inquiry outside the boundary of defined dogma. The schoolmen indeed revelled in this liberty, such as it was. They were at once zealots for the faith, and passionate, if sometimes foolish, lovers of philosophy. It was an accident that the philosophy utilised for their purpose was in the main that o f Aristotle, again and again proscribed and as frequently revived. Speculation soon ran wild. Foreseeing possible danger to the creed itself, and desirous of bringing divines back to the safer paths of the older theology, Peter Lombard (who died Bishop of Paris, c. 1160) constructed his immortal Sentences. He collected together passages o f the Fathers bearing on the chief topics of dispute, balanced opinions on this side and that, and often sug­ gested rather than pronounced decisions of his own. The matter of his four books is arranged in a series of sections appropriately called Distinctions, each of which contains on an average some dozen Questions. The first book contains forty-eight distinctions concerning the divine attributes; the second forty-four distinctions on creation, angels and men, free will and grace. The third book treats in forty distinctions of the Incarnation, the virtues and commandments; while the fourth discusses the seven sacraments, the judgment, heaven, and hell. It is not a large work. The whole may be comprised in a small 4to volume of less than 600 pages. How it came about that Peter Lombard’s treatise was at once adopted by all the schools as the one universally recognised text­ book, and so remained for four centuries—not indeed dropping out of use for two centuries longer—is something of a mystery. The Master of the Sentences was not himself a great authority, and was not free from errors. His plan was not altogether new. It will be noticed, too, that important topics, the Loci theologici, questions JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 115 on the authority of Scripture, tradition, councils, and Popes, find no place in his scheme, and there is little room for the discussion of the questions which lie at the basis of the more modern treatises of moral theology. His book was, however, the success of the Middle Ages. No book, save the Bible, was so commented upon. The text itself has been printed, say, little more than eighty times, but the extant commentaries in print or m s . are literally to be counted by thousands. In England alone, before the Reformation, there were at least 160 commen­ tators, among whom are found 46 Franciscans, 42 Carmelites, 28 Dominicans, 10 Augustinians, 6 Benedic­ tines, and 2 Cistercians. New commentaries on the Sentences, and commentaries on the commentaries of Scotus on the Sentences, continued to issue from the press till the middle of the eighteenth century. It is needless to remark that the comparatively sensible object which the Master set before himself was not realised. The old evil was rather aggravated, for divines, seeing the decisions of the ancients served up for them in so convenient a fashion, were the more readily tempted to dispense themselves from any further reference to the Fathers. Theology entered upon a new stage with St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). His powerful intellect, his wise moderation, and the comparative lucidity of the method which he instituted in his Summa, did not indeed induce theologians to abandon the Sentences upon which St. Thomas himself commented. But his great name led to the formation of a definite school, which counted its disciples far beyond the limits of his own order. In this there was manifest danger to freedom of thought, for theological conclusions, when generally accepted, are apt to become crystallised into dogma. The threatened dictatorship of the great Dominican was happily averted by the searching criticisms of a modest and devout Franciscan, known in the schools as the 4 subtle doctor,’ and out of them as 6 the prince of sophists.’ This John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) was immediately hailed as the chosen master of his order. Henceforward, until this dualism was in turn disturbed by the intervention of a third school, that of the Nominalists under William 116 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC

Ockham, divines were roughly ranged in the two equally orthodox and legitimate camps of Thomist and Scotist. It is impossible to barely name here a tithe of the differences between them—differences in principle and in detail which cover the whole range of speculative theology. It is important to bear in mind that in all matters regard­ ing the rule of faith Thomists and Scotists were at one. ‘ To Scotus no less than to St. Thomas/ says Dr. Werner, quoted in Addis and Arnolds Dictionary, ‘ the Pope is the supreme guardian and divinely instituted exponent of the deposit of faith.’ Both also recognised Aristotle as the highest philosophical authority, though Scotus adopted many Platonic ideas, and some of his disciples went so far as to extol Plato above Aristotle himself. The object of both doctors was to establish harmony between metaphysics and dogma. Ueberweg, who gives in brief the clearest account of Scotist characteristics, remarks that Scotus was essentially a critic, that his early mathematical training had taught him what was meant by proving, and that he accordingly refused to recognise in many of the pretended proofs offered any real proof at all. Thus creation out of nothing and the immortality of the soul were demonstrable to St. Thomas, but not so to Scotus. With the latter, the strictest and most child­ like faith in Christian doctrines was united to a sturdy scepticism in regard to the arguments by which they were commonly maintained. His temper in this respect was somewhat akin to that of Cardinal Newman. His fundamental principle in psychology was ‘ the will is superior to the intellect.’ With Aquinas it was quite the other way. According to the Dominican God commands what is good because it is good ; according to Scotus the good is good because God commands it. The theology of the most subtle of the schoolmen, coloured perhaps by the influence of St. Bonaventura, was in fact the most emotional. St. Thomas places beatitude in the knowledge of God, Scotus in the love of God. A modern writer not unfairly contrasts ‘ the serene masculine discernment of the Dominican order’ with the more ‘ feminine, senti­ mental, and impressionable intellectualism of the followers of St. Francis.’ JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 117

It has been said that Scotism is now dead. This is true of the system, as a whole, for the excessive realism upon which its philosophy is based—the tendency to make real entities of every universal or mental abstraction — is hopelessly irreconcilable with modern modes of thought. But many leading and characteristic ideas of Scotus have become the common possession of the modern eclectic schools. The triumph of Scotus was the Immaculate Conception, which has even passed into a dogma of his Church. The so-called Scotist theory of the Incarnation which teaches that the W ord made man was decreed before the foresight of the Fall, and that Jesus would have come into the world in impassible flesh, as the crown of creation, if Adam had not sinned —a doctrine, by the way, to which Major is indifferent, treating it as problematical—has been largely taken up outside the Franciscan ranks. The Jesuit Suarez held it. Father Faber popularised it among Catholics in England, and the Abbe Combalot1 in France. It has been even adopted by Lutheran theologians in Germany. The Scotist doctrine on the moral causality of the sacra­ ments—defended by Major—in opposition to the physical causation of the Thomists has become generally received. More important than any of these are the fundamental differences between the two schools on free will, grace, and predestination, the Scotist leaning to the Pelagian side, against what is commonly called the ‘ Calvinistic ’ tendencies of the Thomists. Scotist doctrine is here only dead, inasmuch as it is lost in the more radical, novel, and successful opposition to Thomism in a similar direction on the part of the Molinist section of the Jesuit school; and in view of the supposed prevalence of Thom- ist doctrine at the present day it is noteworthy that the two saints, Francis of Sales and Liguori, recently raised by Pius ix. to the dignity of ‘ Doctors of the Church,’ were both conspicuous for their adherence to what is called the Pelagianising theories of the Jesuits, Molina, and Lessius. But to return to the Middle Ages. An incident of

1 La connaissance de Jesus-Christ, ou le dogme de Vineamation envisage comme la raison demiere et supreme de tout ce qui est, 1841. 118 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC one among many of the old scholastic disputes will illus­ trate the readiness with which the rival parties, when their passions were excited, hurled at each other charges of heresy, in contrast with the more prudent temporising, if not serene toleration, of the See of Rome. There was at one time hot debate regarding the blood shed by Christ on the ground or on the cross during the Passion. The Dominicans asserted that every drop of blood re­ assumed by Christ after the Resurrection remained, in the interval of his death, hypostatically united with the divinity, and was adorable by latria. The Franciscans denied this. James de la Marche preached the Franciscan doctrine from the pulpit in Easter, 1462. The Dominican inquisitor called upon the holy Franciscan to retract his opinion as heretical. He, on the contrary, repeated it on the following Tuesday. The case was then brought before Pius n. The Pope, says Billuart, a zealous Dominican doctor, would not condemn the Franciscans because they were useful to him just then in preaching the crusades. The Franciscan doctrine, which, by the way, is rejected by the prudent Major, was subsequently rendered barely tenable by a decree of the Council of Trent. Suarez, at least, calls it nec pia nec secura. Pius ii., however, had contented himself with forbidding the Dominicans to censure it as heretical. When the cause of St. James’s beatification was introduced, the devil’s advocate brought up against him this erroneous teaching. It was finally decided by the sacred congre­ gation that the opinion in question was in the fifteenth century ‘ probable,’ and accordingly Benedict xm . canon­ ised the bold preacher without scruple.1 It must not be imagined that every Dominican was a strict Thomist or every Franciscan a Scotist. There were a number of independent thinkers on either side. Major constantly singles out for praise men of this sort on the ground that they were not content simply jurare in verba magistri. Thus he often mentions with approval Henry of Ghent, a Dominican who departed from Thomism in the direction of Platonism and Scotism. Richard Middleton, another favourite of Major’s and an 1 The whole story is told in Faber’s Essay on Beatification, p. 45. JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 119

eminent doctor, was one of what M. Haur^au calls the ‘ unfaithful Franciscans/ The first broad departure from the two dominant schools was taken almost simultaneously by Durandus a S. Portiano, a Dominican, and Peter Auriol the Franciscan (d. 1345), who in a marked degree initi­ ated or rather revived the philosophy of the Nominalists. Peter derided the search for the principle of individua­ tion— the main effort of Thomist and Scotist alike— as utterly vain, and declared that the theories of Scotus on genera and species were a revival of the errors of Plato. But it was reserved for William of Ockham (d. 1347), commonly said, though not apparently without doubt, to have been a pupil of Scotus, to formulate into a com­ plete system this opposition to the prevalent realism. He in consequence earned from his disciples the title of ‘ venerabilis inceptor.’ He sums up the Scotist theory of universals with the rude conclusion, ‘ Ista opinio est simpliciter falsa et absurda.’ The Dominicans were de­ lighted, for though Ockham was no friend of theirs, his hardest blows fell upon their rivals. ‘ A most bitter antagonist of his master’ he was, says Wadding,1 but he ‘ sinned not so much in impugning the doctrine of his master as in rebelling against the teacher of the universal Church John x x n .’ The editor of the Opera Omnia of Scotus consoles himself with the feeble rumours which he had somewhere read, that Ockham repented, and was in Ireland venerated as a saint. The originality and acuteness of Ockham would have made him a far greater power in the Church had it not been for the pre­ judices excited by his revolutionary attitude towards the * papal power. As it was, his philosophy had a notable influence upon the doctrine of his age, and is said to mark the final stage of mediaeval scholasticism. Now certain critics of Major tell us that he was a Scotist— they tell us also that he was a Nominalist. Can we make him therefore personally responsible for the tendencies, good or evil, which underlie both or either of the two opposing schools ? Historians of philosophy whose interest in the Catholic schools generally ceases when the moment of the Re- 1 Vita Scoti (Mons, 1644), p. 128. 120 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC formation is reached, and whose aim is to discover the relations which may exist between the mediaeval Catholic and modern non-Catholic systems, justly examine with magnifying glasses any primitive metaphysical germs which seem to reveal the sources of modern evolution. M. Haur^au closes his interesting and suggestive analysis with the air of a prophet. He appears to be keenly alive to the latent dangers of Scotism. ‘ Pantheism,’ he de­ clares, and not of course without ground, ‘ is the normal conclusion, the rational conclusion of realism,’ and he pronounces Scotus to be the true forerunner of Spinoza. On the other hand, he finds that ‘ the modern spirit’ which, ‘ according to M. R^musat, showed itself long ago in Abelard,’ came to maturity in Ockham. ‘ Ockham’s philosophical conclusion’ is, in fact, ‘ exactly that of Locke or that developed by Kant.’ 1 This may be true enough of the principles in question; and it is a fair and intelligible form of speech to describe the original thinker and formulator of a system, however unconscious he may have been of its ultimate issues, as the precursor of the man who logically carried them out. But it is impossible to think of Major— a man who originated nothing and who developed nothing, a mere retailer of the current ideas of his age— as the precursor of anything. He was simply an educational product. Moreover, as he per­ sonally was unconscious of any tendency in his Scotism, such as it was, towards Spinoza, or of any proclivity in Nominalism towards Locke, so also was his Church. While Major taught at Paris there were maintained at Salamanca— the orthodox centre of the new scholastic revival— by the side of the Cathedra major devoted to * the elucidation of the Sentences, three so-called minor Chairs, the Cathedra Thomce, the Cathedra Scoti, and the Cathedra Nominalium, otherwise styled the Cathedra Durandi.2 Wadding says that the Chair of Scotus, founded at Coimbra, was equal in authority and emolu­ ments to that of St. Thomas, while the Scotist Chair at Alcala held there the first place. It cannot surely be

1 Histoire de la philosophie scholastique, vol. ii., chap. xxx. 2 Dr. Carl Werner, Der Uebergang der Scholastik in ihr nachtridentinisches Entwickelungstadium (Wien, 1887), p. 5. JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 121 said that the Church regarded the doctrine of Scotus with suspicion. But in truth Major was a thorough eclectic. He belonged strictly to no school except so far as he faith­ fully adhered to the traditions of his own university. H e prided himself on his independence. In order to get a good text of Scotus’ Reportata, he encouraged two Franciscan friends to edit the work carefully. He himself edited the work of Adam Goddam, one of the ‘ unfaithful’ Franciscans, and an opponent of Scotus. He often differs from the Nominalists, or attempts to reconcile them with the Realists. For Gabriel Biel he seems to have as much dislike as for Caxton. He fre­ quently quarrels with Ockham on important points. He has a partiality for Scotus, wThom he likes to call Con- terraneus, and where Major’s philosophic principles permit it, he probably agrees more often with Scotus than St. Thomas: and in this wide sense only can he be called Scotist at all. H e will reject an opinion of Scotus tenderly with the remark ‘ utinam tam vera quam pia! ’ and as a rule adheres to him just on those points where the subtle Doctor is largely followed by more recent theologians. Major as a theologian is for his date moderate and safe. He lays down the timid rule ‘ sententia communior, ergo verior.’ He dislikes novel­ ties, and apologises if he is found on the side of the neo- terici. He had some learning, a good memory, and much shrewd sense. He was fond of anecdote, and addicted to digressions; his books are therefore a storehouse of infor­ mation on all manner of antiquarian lore, the habits of ‘ brownies,’ the incomes of bishops, curiosities of natural history, and agricultural prices. He had read, and quotes constantly, the Latin classics, but the spirit of humanism had not touched him.1 For the ways and ideas of Erasmus and Colet he had an undisguised aversion. He was indeed a great censor of morals, but there was nothing of the practical reformer about him. The liberal Catholics 1 ‘ He belonged essentially to an exhausted movement,’ writes Mr. Hume Brown, in The Vernacular Writings o f George Buchanan (Scot. Text Soc., 1892, p. xiii). In this work, which has appeared since the present paper was written, Mr. Brown expresses very forcibly the just estimate of Major which he had pre­ viously formed in his George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, pp. 38-43. 122 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC of his day minimised miracles, made a jest of the religious orders and would lessen their number, exaggerated the barbarities and inaccuracies of the Vulgate, and cried for a new version or a return to the original texts. Their method of Biblical exegesis was new. They were offended by the abuse of logical forms, by the place given to Aris­ totle, and by the trivial questions which occupied the schools. They would reform the ritual, and would give the communion cup to the laity. Colet on one occasion, referred to by Mr. Constable, lost his temper and his manners in deriding the veneration given to relics. How far Major was from any such attitude will be at once apparent. His admiration for Aristotle amounted to worship. He seems to have regarded him not only as the ultimate authority on all matters of natural science but as a saint. He is angry with an opponent who suggests that two religious orders would suffice for the Church. He holds to the integrity of the Vulgate down to the least syllable, to the old methods of interpretation, to the old ritual, to the old ways of teaching. He was a good man, an amiable man, and beloved by his pupils, but he was every inch a mediaeval scholastic. It is time, however, to offer the reader some taste of a commentary on the Sentences in the first decade of the sixteenth century, and to let the professor speak for him­ self, though there be no room to give any idea of the prolixity, the intricacy, and tediousness of his method, where a dozen arguments are followed by as many objec­ tions, distinctions, and answers, on a single insignificant and barely intelligible point. Take for example the question (In Tertium, dist. ii. qu. 1) whether the Divine Word could assume an irra­ tional nature. On this matter there are two or rather three opinions, says Major. Henry of Ghent, a disciple of Albertus Magnus who, as has been said, went over from the Dominican to the Scotist school, maintains with Picus of Mirandola, the negative. Middleton, an English Franciscan, viewed the question, very wisely it may be thought, as 4problematical.’ A third opinion ‘ more common and therefore the truer’ holds the affirmative, which is proved thus. The word did de facto assume an JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 123 irrational nature, for in the triduum of the Passion the soul of Christ was separated from the body and no longer informed it. Yet the body was hypostatically united to the Divine Word. A t this point Gabriel Biel — the famous Nominalist who to the great injury of Major and his successors, has sometimes been described as ‘ the last of the scholastics,’ interposes in support of a c sophisti­ cal evasion,’— viz. that the body was not immediately united — alleging a dictum of Alexander Hales, the master of Scotus, to the effect that if the hypostatic union had been withdrawn from the soul it would also have left the body of Christ. Of what worth is this testimony of Alexander, asks Major, if he does not bring proof of i t ? ‘ I say here that many things whether asserted by this man [Gabriel] or by Alexander are to be utterly rejected. It is false to say that the body was hypostatically united mediante animal Major proceeds to argue that God could ‘ assume,’ in some or other union according to its nature, any created thing. The objector urges that in such a case the following syllogism might hold good: Deus est asinus; omnis asinus est animal stolidum, therefore God is animal stolidum. Major is not to be frightened. H e would concede the proposition, Deus est asinus and Deus habet longas aures, but would deny that Deus est animal stolidum, for, on the contrary, in the case supposed, the ass would know all things. Further questions whether God could hypostatically assume ‘ a sinner,’ or could assume ‘ whiteness,’ involve some distinctions and evasions. On the latter hypothesis it appears that you could not say 4 God is white,’ but you could say at least ‘ God sustains whiteness.’ Finally Major returns to the more fascinating question of the ass; for an opponent has argued that ‘ an angel could not become an ass, therefore neither could God.’ The answer is triumphant, ‘ Nego antecedens, connotative captis ter minis, for God might assume both the angel and the ass, and then,’ etc. But the professor bids his pupils remember that it would be imprudent in the public schools, before a number of laymen, to moot such propositions as that God could be a cow and at the same time assume hay, or assume both a mouse and cheese and so eat Himself, 124 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC or assume heat and cold, and so be in contradiction to Himself; for to maintain such things, though proper enough for those who have understanding, might in addition to other inconveniences give scandal to the ignorant. Fortunately for intellectual progress it was not the ignorant only who were scandalised. ‘ I have seen John Major’s commentaries on Peter Lombard,’ says Melanch- thon. 6 He is now, I am told, the prince of the Paris divines. Good heavens ! what waggon loads of trifling! W hat pages he fills with disputes whether there can be any horsemanship without a horse, whether the sea was salt when God made it. If he is a specimen of the Parisian, no wonder they have so little stomach for Luther.’ But Major was not irreverent, and he had at least on other subjects some sense of humour. He certainly did not wish to subject the cardinal doctrine of Christianity to a reductio ad absurdum. He was no sceptic, but wrote as he did in the fulness of a faith which could move mountains. The reader who is not afraid of being shocked should turn for some similar curiosities to the questions (In Quart., dist. x.) concerning the localisation of the body of Jesus in the host, whether Jesus is in the Eucharist so many feet in height, whether the head is joined to the neck, the feet separated from the head at the same distance as in heaven, whether the body is turned upside down, etc. In the interests of his science, Major vivisects the dogma with a coolness and cruelty which are amazing. On the more general question (In Quart., dist. x. qu. iv.), Whether God can place any one body at the same time in two different places ? a few lines may be quoted :—

4 Here I find two opposite ways. One is that of blessed Thomas and his followers, Aegidius Romanus, Henricus Gandavensis, and Durandus maintaining the negative. The other is that of Altisi- odorus [William of Auxerre, an ancient theologian, and great friend of Major], Alexander Hales, and Conterraneus. I will state on the said question what my judgment is ; for on my part I do not regard it as a problem, but I hold the affirmative part to be most certain, and so I think would any one, non jurans in verba magistrV Major’s first proof of this conclusion, viz. that St. Ambrose said mass at Milan, while at the same time JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 125 he assisted at the funeral of St. Martin at Tours; or that the body of St. Baldred is preserved in three places, Ald- hame, Tyningham, and Prestonkirk, is given in one of Mr. Constable’s notes to the History\ His fifth proof is delightfully scholastic, thus :— ‘ Fifth Argument. God can put an angel or a soul in two separate places, therefore a body. Our adversaries do not deny the conse­ quence. The antecedent is thus proved. The soul of Sortes is in his head and in his foot, but God can make his soul cease to inform the middle parts of his body, the soul remaining in his extremities, and so in two separate places.’ The seventh argument is that God can transubstantiate bread into an angel-;; then, where there is a multitude of such transubstantiated loaves really distinct, we shall have one and the same angel in different places. A climax is reached when, a few pages further on, Sortes is placed simultaneously in Nineveh and at Babylon, and he (Sortes) leaves at the same time both places, and meets him­ self on the road. A characteristic example of a question in casuistry is the following:— ‘ It follows that in the ordinary way of eating, reckoned lawful by all men, you may eat flesh-meat in Lent and yet fast well. This is shown in the eating of beans and peas, which generally contain little animals (bestiolce). Invincible ignorance excuses a man from sin in eating such dead animals, nor is it requisite to depart from the usual way of eating them by breaking the beans and catching the bestiolce. . . . As to the beaver, the bridge-builder [de fibro Pontiftco— is this a joke of Major’s P] who always keeps his tail and hinder parts in the water, and his anterior part out of the water, you may eat the posterior without breaking your fast, but not the foreparts. For this is the way in which fish is distinguished from flesh. The fish cannot naturally live long out of water, but the hinder part of that beast, when it is in the air, must often be moistened with water, but not so the foreparts— so they say. There is, however, an objection from Physics against this beaver, for, from what has been said, it would appear that the two parts are specifically distinct, and in con­ sequence that out of them there cannot be constituted one thing. This is not conclusive, for you have a similar case, for instance, in a twig, one part of which may be dry and the other living wood . . .’ and so on. (In Quartum, dist. xv. qu. 3.) In 1518, two years after the appearance of Erasmus’ epoch-making editipn of the Greek Testament, Major, 126 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC

following in this the fashion of scholastics, published an attempt at Biblical exegesis. His Commentary on S t Matthew bears not a trace of the new learning. In one respect only does Major here differ from the majority of his mediaeval predecessors. He is less devoted than they are, as a rule, to the mystical sense. He has not learnt how to extract the literal meaning of his author from text and context, nor does he show any interest in the studies of this kind. The literal sense is a thing to be briefly stated in the traditional manner, and the text then becomes a con­ venient peg upon which to hang questions, scholastic and casuistical, for which Peter Lombard had not provided sufficient room. Thus the words ‘ Whosoever will force thee one mile go with him other tw o/ are made plain by the comment, ‘ that is, if any one compels you to go from Leith to Edinburgh, you will say, “ Yea, sir, even unto Corstorphine.” ’ Upon this we are at once led to a debate on the law of retaliation. These doubts and difficulties form the kernel of the book, and the index-maker, James Godquint, has been good enough to tabulate them to the number of 303 in a volume of 102 leaves. Some are purely speculative, and are substantially repetitions of what Major had said before in his commentaries on the Sentences, and some concern dogmatic or historical facts, but a large number are practical cases of conscience. Moral theology had not in Major’s time taken up the position it assumed in ecclesiastical studies at a later date. Space is made for a defence of Constantines donation, and of the right of the Pope to the temporal princedom, or of the power of councils to grant indulgences. The text lends itself easily to discussions whether a priest or religious can satisfy his obligation of saying his breviary at the same time that he fulfils the precept of hearing mass, whether 4 the Pope would sin by breaking the fast, and what Major calls ‘ a beautiful question regarding Bertha/ which nowa­ days would be confined to a formal treatise D e M atii- monio. The doubts, the conclusions, the objections, and the answers are marshalled in the same way as in the theologies. In the Commentary on the Four Gospels, published in JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 127

1529, the literal exposition, or rather the historical para­ phrase, is a little more extended. Some of the scholastic questions on St. Matthew, of the 1518 edition, disappear, or are abridged, to make room for a number of other dubitations of a similar character. The method is perhaps a little less formal. A bitter animus now makes its appearance against the Lutherans, and some of their positions are assailed, but in controversy of this kind Major does not shine. His exposition of Christ’s tempta­ tion in the desert gives a fair example of his Biblical style at its best.

4 After a stomach rambling from want of food, a handle is given to the old fox to tempt Christ. A t one time he knew much of John, the son of Zachary, but now that John openly confesses himself un­ worthy to loosen the latchet of the shoes of Jesus, the devil applies all the resources of his wit to discover the truth. On the other hand Christ strove to utterly overthrow his tyrant before the crafty serpent could find it out. Thus we see in the ‘ tentative1 examination for Arts in the church of St. Genevieve the candidates endeavouring with all their might to defend their theses, while the examiners are aiming with their sharpest darts to strike the target. Now the object of Christ in the present instance was not to reveal himself as the Son of God. Although all lying is blameworthy, to be silent about the truth is not seldom of advantage. Three sorts of men let their tongues blab whatever occurs. The drunkard, the fool, and boys tell you the truth. The astute tempter artfully, and with pre­ meditation, prepares his sophistical device. In one way he surpassed the bachelors of the first licentiate. It is fair to suppose that this tempter was Lucifer himself, who, with his soft words and tricks, circumvented our first parents. The verbose sophist by his dilemmas and his sorites got round the strong-minded Eve. Drawing nigh, he now says, ‘ If thou art the Son of God,’ etc. . . . A t his first approach (as I conjecture) he saluted Christ with courtesy, pretend­ ing benevolence in order to deceive. So the cautious disputant in the Rue du Fouarre stuffs the head of the Moderator with flattering speeches, that he should not frown down doubtful matter. Now if the Lord turned the stones into bread he could have proved himself the Christ. If not, the devil would have concluded him to be mere man. Therefore, the horned dilemma was trusted to extort the truth from either side of the reply. Neither Zeno the Eleatic nor Protagoras the Thessalonian could have more cunningly laid the net of the syllogism. But to the conditional of the tempter, the Lord, in reply, passing by the antecedent, refuted the consequent— intro­ ducing divine scripture, and giving us the rule that not with our own strength, but by the sacred page, should we contend with the sly 128 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC demon. . . . Whence we derive this law. Between any things what­ soever, differing in species, Almighty God can interpose a medium partaking of the character of both.’ In similar fashion Major runs over the remainder of the narrative, and not without further references to the manners of an angry president of the Sorbonne disputa­ tions. Then follow the questions :— ‘ Secondly, you may doubt, perhaps, whether the fast of Lent was instituted by divine or human law. Here know that the execrable Lutherans, with their pestilent satellites, confounding divine and human things, throw to the winds and explode every fast imposed by our forefathers. They rely upon the erroneous ground that the Church cannot establish laws obliging under pain of mortal sin, they even rashly assert that the Church is at fault in exacting such laws. It is the opinion of others that the Lenten fast is prescribed by the divine law. To this I do not assent, as I have declared these many years past in the xvth Distinction of the ivth Book of the Sentences. . . . And lest I should seem to stand alone in this, there are Alex. Hales, Thomas Aquinas, and Richard Middleton, who maintain the same. Platina in his Annals of the Roman Pontiffs states that the fast of Lent was instituted by Pope Telesphorus. Some refer it to Simon Barjona; for Simon Barjona or Peter the first pope might lay down laws for the people in the pontifical manner.’ The story of John Baptist naturally leads to a discus­ sion upon his relics.

‘ Is the head of the Baptist in many places ? It is a question of fact. I do not doubt that God can put a body, whether whole or in part, circumscriptum, in separate places, but I do not think that he did so in this case, although some declare that the head of John is at Amimurci [?], and in the monastery of St. Silvester at Rome. The greater concourse of pilgrims is at Amiens. Crowds go from Britain to Amiens to venerate that sacred head, and many miracles are there wrought. Therefore I should rather believe the head to be there than elsewhere.’ He proceeds to suggest the way in which the relics were obtained, in the time of the Emperor Julian, and how it came about that various bones are preserved in the church of St. Laurence at Genoa, and the index finger in the basilica at Florence. But he continues:—

‘ It will not be out of place to recall to mind the miracle which occurred in reference to his relics near Babylonia of Egypt, where there is a monastery dedicated to the Baptist, and where his relics JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 129

are contained in a little ark. There was a long-established custom observed there, on the feast of the Saint’s Nativity, by both Christians and Saracens, who assembled together in order to dispatch the chest in a boat to another monastery sacred to St. John. They discharge the chest into the river Nile against the stream, and the box floats with such speed as to outstrip the fleetest horse. Every year numbers of people witness this miracle. Now between the two monasteries of St. John there is a distance of ten miles. The candid reader will pardon me if I sometimes digress from the explanation of the text, especially when other matters not out of harmony with the text, and worthy of note, are introduced. For the censure of the critics I don’t care a straw. It is their nature to secretly snap their jaws at every one.’ The ethics of homicide are treated at some length. ‘ Murder is a greater crime than adultery, but adultery with a queen is a greater crime than the murder of some vagabond. Every homicide is not a sin, for to preserve chastity any one may kill the aggressor. It is impossible to convict of sin a queen or princess who cuts the throat of a cook or some one of that sort who makes •an attempt on her virtue, if there is no other way of escape. . . . It is not lawful for a private person to slay an usurper who has forcibly overcome opposition and is settled in the kingdom. . . . I think such a one should not be slain by a private person. It is for the chiefs of the State to consider the matter. Eglon was a public enemy of Israel and a foreigner who disturbed Israel, and Aioth [Ehud] was a public person at the head of the State, but even if he had been a private person it would have been lawful for him to remove Eglon.’ Commenting on Matthew xxvii. 9, Major touches on an ancient suggestion, that the evangelist here wrote Jeremias for Zackery, by some ‘ secret counsel/ in order to show that what was said by one prophet was said by all or by any. ‘ This secret counsel I do not receive. Nor is the Gloss, pro­ posing the word per prophetam and omitting the name of Jeremias satisfactory, nor the suggestion that in ancient copies it was so written, nor that by an hallucination of the writer the one name was written for the other. For to say there was a lapse of memory on the part of the evangelist is sheer insanity. Such follies with regard to the evangelist I cannot read with patience. Since the received version (receptissimus usus) of the church has the name of Jeremias, this must stand. Holy Church directed by the Holy Spirit does not halt. Moreover, I blow to the winds all such suggestions, for if Zacharias was also called Jeremias the difficulty vanishes.’ I 130 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC

In like manner Major lets us know his opinion of the Vulgate on the question whether we should read si or sic in John xxi. 22. 4 The Greeks read si. They say it is the easier reading, and that in the New Testament we should go to the Greek fountain, that sic should be deleted as an error, so Laurentius Valla and others with more acerbity. But our codices have sic without controversy. If you alter or take away one word, you may alter a second or a third and thus take away from our bibles all their strength and solidity. Nor should we give so much credit to the Greeks, who often differ among themselves, in what concerns the most received version of the Latin church now in use for more than a thousand years.’ On the Immaculate Conception Major always speaks with warmth. In addition to the common arguments in favour of this doctrine, he argues, as has been already said, that the Council of Basle defined it with an explicit decree. 4 Opponents cavil against this council which they say produced a basilisk, but this will not do, for though there were disputes between Eugenius and Felix the whole church received this decree nemine contradicente. Our faculty of theologians, also, at Paris, following in the steps of the council, admits no bachelor of theology until by oath he has assented to this doctrine. Sixtus v. sanctioned it. It is rash to maintain the opposite. It is madness. Good G o d ! (he exclaims) how many preachers of the contrary opinion in my time have collapsed and been ejected from the pulpit by wise men and the populace. In no pulpit should such men be heard, but they should be expelled confusibiliter. Know, says Aristotle, that those who refuse to venerate the gods and honour their parents are not to be convinced by arguments but beaten with stripes. In truth, the man does not venerate Christ who asserts that the flesh which he assumed was at any time obnoxious to sin.’ In the discussion of this question in the In Tertium (Dist. ii. qu. 4), Major confirms his argument 4 by miracles which no one but a fool will deny.5 One of these is that 4 a preacher at Cracow, who declared that the mother of God was conceived in original sin, dropped dead, as a sheet of the times (fasciculus temporum) reports, before his sermon was finished.’ The discipline of the Roman Church in refusing to the laity communion under both kinds is rigidly defended without hesitation or reserve. JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 131

‘ If the Bohemians say that they are obliged by the divine law to the double participation conceded to them, they maintain damn­ able heresy. . . . John Hus, and Jerome of Prague, the criminal authors of heresy, were burnt at Constance for their rash ventures. If the present poison, more mature than that of the Bohemians, had been sharply repressed the pernicious dogma would not have spread so far.’

Major closes his commentary on the Gospel of Mark with six questions, one of which is, Whether Mary was assumed, body as well as soul, into heaven? He of course replies in the affirmative. 4 It is not a matter which should be brought into controversy. Mary died, and at her death there were present the Apostles, gathered together from all parts into which they had been dispersed. So says Dionysius. . . . It is not to be thought of that the Lord would suffer his mother’s body to lie in the earth unknown and without due veneration. Secondly, it is piously believed that the body of John the Evangelist was assumed into heaven, therefore without a doubt the same should be conceded regarding the body of the “ deipara.” . . . This was the opinion held by Augustine in a certain sermon, and many men of weight follow him. You will say, perhaps, that this is a pious belief (de pietate fidei). If you mean by a pious belief one that it is lawful to deny with impunity, this is not enough. For if any one in preaching were to call in doubt the bodily assumption, he would be compelled to sing his palinodia and to retract. I am not ignorant that Thomas Aquinas says in the xliiird distinction of the ivth Book of Sentences that it is merely a pious belief, or that Richard Middleton and many others subscribe to his opinion, or that Jerome is, as it were, in doubt about it. . . . But you may divide pious beliefs into two kinds. Opinions of the one kind it is not sinful to call in doubt although the opposite is better calculated to nourish piety. . . . A pious belief of the other kind is an irrefragable truth although it is not contained in, or deducible from the Bible. The case proposed is a belief of this last kind.’

These specimens, which may be multiplied indefinitely, should be sufficient to show, once for all, how very far Major stood from the position taken up by any of the liberal or minimising parties within the Church. Neither his language nor his ideas were those of the humanists. He showed no leanings towards the doctrinal and ritual reforms afterwards suggested or developed by Bishop Nausea, Hermann von Wied, Gropper, and others in 132 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC

Germany, or by the Bishops of Henry vm . in England. He seemed, on the other hand, blind to the lessons which Luther was teaching to the best minds on the Catholic side. See for example, by way of the sharpest contrast, the impression made by the Protestant Reformation on a far greater man than Major, the Dominican, Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan. He is best known as the scholastic commentator on St. Thomas Aquinas, and the haughty legate who was sent by Leo x. to browbeat Luther. He was, or rather he became, an earnest and humble student of Scripture, learning Hebrew in his old age in order to make his own translation. ‘ I intend,’ he wrote, in the preface to his Commentary on the Pentateuch, ‘ to expound the text according to the Hebrew verity, for the Hebrew and not the Greek or Latin interpretation is authoritative, which we are com­ pelled to embrace, and which all the faithful do embrace.’ His interpretation of both Old and New Testaments is surprisingly free. He doubts the authenticity of the Vulgate readings in important passages. He rejects with­ out scruple the received explanations of many texts commonly adduced to prove the sacrifice of the mass, the sacrament of penance and extreme unction, and denies that the discourse of Christ in John vi. has any reference to the Eucharist. On Justification he inclines, like Pole, Contarini, and others, to Lutheran ideas, and he is in favour of the use of the vernacular in church services. He was accused of heresy by his brother Dominican, Catharinus, and, at a later date, defended from the charge by the more large-minded Benedict xiv. He died in 1534, many years before the meeting of the Council of Trent, and represents the fluctuating attitude assumed by many scholars and thinkers of real eminence before the Tridentine settlement. Major never thus wavered. As a theologian he. seems to belong rather to the fifteenth century than to the stirring years of the sixteenth in which his lot was cast. Major was not a bishop or a missionary preacher; he possessed no ecclesiastical jurisdiction or rank. It was therefore hardly in his power, even if he had the desire, to initiate, or co-operate in, practical reforms in any JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 133 sphere except that of ecclesiastical education. Here he at least held a high and influential position, and his name was something to conjure with. Mr. Mackay calls atten­ tion to the interesting fact which has hitherto escaped the notice of Major’s biographers that he was invited, nay pressed with solid inducements, by Wolsey to accept a chair of theology in the Cardinal’s newly founded college at Oxford. Mr. Mackay would have us infer from this that Major was regarded by his contemporaries as at least standing very near to the parting of the ways between the old and the new academic methods. W e perhaps scarcely know enough of Wolsey’s mind on the matter to draw so definite a conclusion. The English statesman would at least have regarded with favour an eminent Scot who was an avowed advocate of the union of the two kingdoms. Major, however, declined the offer, and preferred to return to Paris and there carry out his literary projects. He may have had other reasons for this besides those which he gives in the epistle dedi­ cating his Ethics to Wolsey. He may have felt unequal to throwing himself into a new movement. In any case the view entertained of Major as an educational reformer by his contemporaries and successors on the Catholic side deserves consideration. The judgment of the progressive party within the Church, of the men who drew their inspiration from the Council of Trent and aimed at the revival and purifica­ tion of theological studies, is on this point unmistakable. W e may take first the testimony of the erudite Spanish scholar, John Maldonatus, of the Society of Jesus. Maldonatus was born about the time that Major left Paris, he studied under the pioneers of the new Catholi­ cism at Salamanca, and when the Jesuits at length (in 1563) succeeded in establishing a college at the University of Paris, he was appointed by the Society to their Chair of Philosophy. He too, like Major, became a lecturer on the Sentences, but he is best known for his commentary on the Gospels, which, whatever its defects, remains to this day the standard work of its kind, unsurpassed, nay unequalled in ability and lucidity, within the Roman Church. Maldonatus, before opening his classes, delivered 134 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC an inaugural discourse, in which he passes under review the recent history of theological studies at Paris.1 ‘ To the epoch of Peter Lombard,’ he says,c succeeded an age to which we hardly know whether to assign praise or blame. It is to be felicitated inasmuch as it was troubled with few heresies, but, on the other hand, it is a matter of lament that this very tranquillity was the cause of the decadence and almost of the ruin of good letters. Thanks to the piety of the most Christian kings who had a high esteem for theologians, men of this profession multiplied greatly at the University of Paris. The most of them were men of knowledge and talent, but seeing that they had no war to sustain against heretics, they laid down their arms, that is to say, they neglected the sacred books, the holy fathers and the ancient manner of teaching theology. . . . They concentrated their thoughts on the philosophy of Aristotle, and employed their lives and faculties in inventing, proposing and resolving an infinity of intricate questions to exhibit the subtlety of their minds. The schools resounded with Suppositions, Appellations, Exponibilia, Contradictoria, Insolubilia, Syllogisms, and disputes without end, puerile cries and noisy argu­ ments which, when there came the day of serious battle with the enemy, were more calculated to inflict injury on, than to secure victory for, the truth. This is just what happened when in the first years of this century heresy raised on a sudden the standard of revolt. It took us by surprise, disarmed and ill-prepared as we were for the attack. . . . Our enemies reached such a point of audacity that even their women did not scruple to say that they knew the Scriptures better than the most learned of our theologians.’ Few men of his age had a better right than Maldonatus to so speak. If he mentions no names it is plain enough whose methods are here censured as out of date, and whose weapons are condemned as rusty, unprofitable, or dangerous. Melchior Cano, the famous Dominican, author of the Delocis theologids, and master of Maldonatus, uses almost identical language, though with less pointed reference to Paris. But the testimony of a third Spanish scholar, Louis de Carvajal (quoted at length by Prat) is perhaps still more to the point. Carvajal was an actual contemporary of Major at Paris, and afterwards entered the order of St. Francis of the Strict Observance. He was a man of learning and piety, and distinguished him­ self by a reply to the attack of Erasmus upon the religious orders, and assisted at the Council of Trent. In his 1 Printed for the first time by J. M. Prat, S.J., in his Maldonat et FUniversiU de Paris au xvi6 siecle (1856). JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 135 treatise ‘ De Restituta Theologia: liber, in quo theologia repurgatur a sophistica et barbaric/ etc. (Coloniae, 1545), he uses language stronger than that of the Jesuit regard­ ing his old university, and he is less reticent of names. He complains bitterly of the injury done to all the sciences, to Medicine, Civil or Canon Law, as well as to Theology, by the ‘ tyranny of barbarism.’ ‘ And what of Dialectics ? ’ he asks. ‘ O most ignorant and garrulous sophists— for my discourse is addressed to you, I say, the Laxi, the Enzinse, the Dullaerts, the Pardi, Spinosse, Coronelli, Quadripertiti, and the remaining high priests of this quality ! ’— and he proceeds to inveigh against the men who had invaded the sacred schools of Christendom with a sophistry that had always been a laughing-stock to the ancients, and he rings the changes on those ‘ mon­ strosities ’—Suppositions, Obligations, Exponibilia, Insolu- bilia, and the rest— which had 4 well-nigh suffocated the youthful mind, and made literature impossible. ’ Carvajal’s list of names is very significant. Gaspar Lax, who wrote on logic, was a favourite pupil of Major. Antony Coronel was devoted to him, and assisted in the editing of some of his works. John Dullaert of Gherit, who wrote com­ mentaries on the Categories, was another of the Scots­ man’s disciples. The Medulla dialectices of Jerome Pardus was edited by Major himself. Ferdinand de Enzinas, professor of logic at Paris (circ. 1520), though not named in Mr. Constable’s volume, was another writer of the same school. By the Quadripertiti Carvajal no doubt indicates Major’s countryman and scholar, Robert Caubraith. Thus does the advanced guard of the counter­ reformation— Franciscan, Dominican, and Jesuit alike —justify the satires of Melanchthon, Buchanan, and Rabelais, and hold up the ‘ Prince of Paris divines ’ and his school to censure or ridicule, not, be it observed, for any shade of liberalism, but for obscurantism, ‘ barbaries,’ and obstruction. Their criticism is severe and somewhat coloured by rhetoric, but, from the Roman Catholic point of view, it is substantially sound. Indeed, Major himself seems in some measure to be conscious of his own shortcomings as a teacher in the face of the new conditions. The last 136 JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC words perhaps which he penned— the preface addressed, in September 1530, to his notorious namesake, John Major of Eck, the clever, prompt, indefatigable antagonist of Luther— are written in the tone of an apology :— 4 It is nearly twenty years (he writes) since I published on the First Book of the Sentences a number of little questions in which I discussed or refuted to the best of my ability several positions regard­ ing the liberal arts, de intensione formarum, and similar matters, for such was the manner of writing adopted by theologians. Neverthe­ less, though I have passed the greater part of my life in explaining Aristotle, this custom, I avow, displeased me, inasmuch as I found it little to the taste and pleasure of my auditors.’ Major had written in like manner, two years before, to Noel Beda, that in combining with the sacred science questions of mere physics and metaphysics, he had but followed in the footsteps of the divines of the past two centuries, ‘ tanquam invitus. ’ In this plea of unwilling­ ness he may have somewhat deceived himself; he at least admirably concealed in his writings any feeling of con­ straint. He continues to Dr. E ck:— ‘ Then there arose, about a dozen years since (if I remember right), this new and detestable calamity of the Catholic Church, the execrable heresy of Luther and of those who, from him, have learnt to blaspheme Heaven. In order to confute them the students of theology at Paris began to neglect the definitions of the Sentences, and to betake themselves to the study of Scripture, so that our academy of Sorbonne abandoned the “ Great Ordinaries,” as we call them, to deal with easier topics. . . . But the faculty began to fear lest the minds of the scholars should grow torpid, and should degenerate into crass ignorance. They gave orders, therefore, that the bachelors should sustain, as before, in their public theses the more scholastic and subtle questions according to the older methods, and permitted them only to take up a single thesis of a more practical and simple character. Wherefore I accommodated m yself to the style o f the times?

The truth is that the theological faculty, after a moment’s hesitation, hastened to arrest any incipient tendencies to educational reform. ‘ John Major,’ writes Pere Prat, summing up the situation in a single sentence, ‘ obedient to this order, abstained from any attempt at reform, and thus contributed to retard a movement which by his example he should have promoted.’ JOHN MAJOR, SCOTTISH SCHOLASTIC 137

Major’s Exponibilia, Insolubilia, Summulae, and Ter­ mini, his Commentaries on Peter Lombard and the Gospels were soon forgotten. There was danger of his interesting and instructive personality passing with them into oblivion. This should not be. It will not be to the honour of the guardians of Scottish literature if its most precious relic of pure, unadulterated, mediaevalism be either ignored or misunderstood. The History o f Greater Britain, with its accompanying record of the author’s life and work, should, at least, revive the memory, if not promote the study, of a national worthy whose mental figure and equipments form a notable landmark in the history of European thought. SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE REIGN OF E L I Z A B E T H 1

O n the last occasion on which I had the honour to address you, gentlemen, the subject of my discourse was the traffic and distribution of books a century before the invention of printing. I purpose this evening to treat of a certain aspect of the circulation of printed books which may be also said, happily, to belong to the past. A friend, by the way, on hearing of my subject, expressed to me the hope that I should put some fun into it. That, alas! is quite beyond my powers; and the humour, if there is any, is only that which sometimes hovers like a ghost over a half-forgotten tragedy. The subject is essentially grave— some may say, dry. Before the days of printing, there were of course books which were condemned, prohibited, and destroyed by authority. But the Press not only increased by a hundredfold the number and influence of books, but enabled authors, publishers, and the books themselves to be more easily identified and discovered. The battle of the liberty of the Press and the power of Church or State began at once. The index of prohibited books was only in name a peculiarity of the Church of Rome. Every creed, every nation, every dynasty had its own tyrannical censor of the Press. Books of every shade of religious opinion and on every side of politics have, at one time or another, been put under the ban. Here in Scotland in 1549 the Roman Catholic hierarchy, alarmed at the budding literature of Protestantism, decreed in Council that all such poems, ballads, and tracts should be diligently sought out and burnt. About a dozen years later the tables were turned and John Knox was supreme. An adventurous schoolmaster of Linlithgow, Ninian Winzet, who adhered to the old faith, addressed the 1 A lecture delivered to the Edinburgh Typographia, 1896. REIGN OF ELIZABETH 139

Reformer some indiscreet questions in a series of trac­ tates. Not receiving a satisfactory reply, Winzet printed his Last Blast o f the Trumpet against the Usurped Authority o f John Knox and his Calvinian Brethren. The answer now came in the most forcible manner. By order of the magistrates the printing press was broken into, the sheets confiscated—there is a fragment preserved in the University Library— and the printer, John Scott, thrown into prison. The unlucky author had to fly the country. Now the subject of prohibited books, in general, is obviously too vast a subject to sketch in ever so slight a manner in a single lecture. I intend therefore, this evening, to confine myself not only to England, but particularly to one class of books, the contraband literature of Roman Catholics in the days of Queen Elizabeth, a subject which lies a little way out of the beaten track and which may present to you some less familiar features of the history of religious intolerance. But before touching Queen Elizabeth and her Catholic subjects, it may be remarked that if you had before you a chronological list of English prohibited books, you could tell the change of dynasty or of the national religion by the mere titles of the books denounced. The first book that, as far as I know, was formally prohibited, was the Supplication o f Beggars by Simon Fish, a satire which made Cardinal Wolsey uncomfortable and was accordingly prohibited by him in 1530. The next book honoured by persecu­ tion was the New Testament in English by William Tyndale. It was printed safely enough at Coblenz and Worms in 1525, but was inhibited in England and burnt by the Archbishop of Canterbury. A summary of Scrip­ ture and some other tracts by the same divine met a similar fate; but as Tyndale, the real offender, was in Holland they laid hands on Richard Grafton, the printer, and threw him into the Fleet prison. All this was of course in Henry’s reign, when royalty was still hovering between Catholicism and Protestantism, and was with unusual impartiality hanging the adherents of both. W e next come to a Historie o f Italie, a booke exceedingly profitable to the reader, printed in 1549. If it were 140 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE profitable to the reader it was hardly so for the author, a clerk of the Privy Council of Edward vi. Queen Mary succeeded to Edward, when the book was suppressed and burnt by the common hangman ; and in 1554 the author, William Thomas, was himself hanged, drawn, and quartered on the charge of conspiring to kill the Queen. Under Mary’s successor, Elizabeth, a number of books fell under the royal censure for presuming to discuss the Queens marriage or to treat of the succession to her crown. Elizabeth was thinking, or pretending to think, of marrying the Catholic Duke of Anjou. The Puritans were alarmed, and a hot-headed lawyer, John Stubbs of Lincoln’s Inn, issued a pamphlet entitled The Discoverie o f a Gaping G ulf whereunto England is like to be swal­ lowed by another French Marriage i f the Lord forbid not the Banns. Stubbs, his printer Singleton, and Page the disseminator of the tract, were apprehended. The printer, lucky fellow, escaped punishment. Stubbs and Page had their right hands chopped off by a cleaver driven through the wrist by a mallet, upon the scaffold, and Stubbs the while loyally lifted his hat with his left hand and cried,‘ God save the Queen!’ When Parsons the Jesuit, who has been called by some the first Whig, though the profane Tory, Dr. Johnson, gave that title to the devil,— when Parsons published his famous treatise on the suc­ cession, and argued wisely that there was no such thing as hereditary right to the crown and that Parliament could for grave reasons, especially on the ground of religion, alter the succession; and went on, not so wisely, to suggest Philip n. of Spain or his daughter, the Infanta, as a suitable heir to the throne of Elizabeth, Parliament made it high treason to possess a copy of the book. This perhaps was, under the circumstances, not surprising; but when one Peter Wentworth set himself to answer Parsons and to establish in his Pithie Exhortation to H er Majesty the claims of the Scottish King, James vi., it does seem rather hard that for offering such sound advice the writer should have been committed to the Tower and his book burnt as usual by the hangman. Any attempt to suppress the doctrine and literature of an earnest section of the community leads naturally to REIGN OF ELIZABETH 141 secret presses, false imprints, and all the various devices by which authors, printers, and publishers will endeavour to evade the restrictions placed upon their liberty. This was particularly the case with the Roman Catholics in the last quarter of the sixteenth century; and the un­ popularity of their principles and aims, and the Protes­ tants’ theological dislike of their doctrines, should not make us blind to the ingenuity, skill, and heroism with which they struggled against the stronger power. W e are now to regard the matter not controversially but historically, and as impartial spectators to watch an episode in the great fight which was raging everywhere for the liberty of the Press. But before I come to any details you must have patience with me while I describe the political situation generally and the preliminaries of the combat. Queen Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne in 1558, was confronted by a decided majority of her subjects in favour of the old religion. The merchants and tradesmen, the active politicians, and the go-ahead portion of the nation in the cities and towns were for progress and Protestantism; the conservative elements, the lawyers, the dignitaries of the Church, the country gentlemen, especially those in the north, were for union with the Pope. The Queen in many ways sympathised with Roman Catholic doctrine, barring the Pope. She was averse, too, to persecution. She hoped to steer a middle course. She took her stand mainly upon the Act of Uniformity; that is, she insisted that she did not wish to interfere with consciences, but for the welfare of the State there must necessarily be but one outward discipline, one worship— all must, as an act of obedience to the State go to the State Church, think or believe what they will. She exacted no profession of faith, there was no national covenant to sign. But she gradually and tentatively imposed upon the clergy and high officials the oath of the royal supremacy. The Roman Catholic bishops were imprisoned or fled the seas; deans and arch­ deacons, heads of colleges, and the flower of the uni­ versities escaped abroad. A number of these exiles took refuge in the Low Countries under the protection of the 142 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE

King of Spain. A t Louvain they established themselves in two houses which they called respectively Oxford and Cambridge, and here they set to work writing a series of controversial tracts. Presently they founded a college or seminary at Douai (afterwards transferred to Rheims in France) for the training of young missionary priests to be sent into England to preach Popery. Among them were many really learned and zealous men, but the diffi­ culties they had to encounter were immense. There had been a rising in the north of England in 1569 which was savagely put down. Then the Pope unwisely excom­ municated Queen Elizabeth, and declared all her subjects free from their allegiance to her. Catholics now, un­ fortunately for themselves, looked to the King of Spain, the Guises of France, and the Pope, to conquer England by force of arms. They were all in consequence regarded as traitors. The penal laws against them were made more severe. It was soon made death for a priest to set foot in the country. Yet in the twentieth year of Eliza­ beth’s reign there were over two hundred priests riding about in disguises, lurking in hiding-holes, exercising their ministry in country mansions at the risk of their lives. They imported books printed abroad— contraband books as they were called— in large quantities, and it is a mystery how they managed it. The Queen and her Council became seriously alarmed. It was no longer a question of merely religious persecution. The State was in peril. The attack of the priests was supported by a threatened combination of the Catholic powers de­ termined upon the dethronement of the Queen and the subjugation of England. A t this moment the seminar­ ists or secular clergy sought the aid of the Jesuits, who hitherto had taken no part in the new missionary enter­ prise. In the summer of 1580 Father Parsons, a very clever controversialist, a cunning politician, and a man of infinite resources, with Campion, a devout, zealous, and eloquent enthusiast, was dispatched from Rome. They landed in England disguised, the one as a merchant of jewels and the other as a smart officer of the army. The Pope had at the same time sent some troops into Ireland to raise an insurrection there. There were rumours of a great REIGN OF ELIZABETH 143 foreign invasion to place the Queen of Scots on Elizabeth’s throne. The whole of England was on the alert. The ports were closely guarded. The pursuivants or police were pro­ vided with portraits of these two Jesuits, who were believed to be particularly mischievous and dangerous. On the other hand, a Catholic Association or club had been formed of rich young Papists (headed by George Gilbert, a convert of Father Parsons), who sold their lands and despoiled themselves to furnish horses, guides, and lodgings for the missionaries. The priests set out on their journeys from one Catholic house to another, preceded by guides or spies, sometimes lodging in the house of a lady whose husband might be a Protestant and ignorant of the character of his guests. In London they sometimes found a harbour in the very houses of the pursuivants whom they were able to bribe. Parsons lodged for a while in the house of the son-in-law of the Bishop of London; sometimes he ventured even into the royal palaces ; once, when hard pressed, he was driven to take refuge with the Spanish ambassador. Campion saw that this could not last. When he rode by Tyburn he would take off his hat and salute the gibbet under whose shadow he passed, and explain to his companion that he did so in honour of his own future martyrdom. He wrote to his superiors at Rom e: ‘ I cannot long escape the hands of the heretics. The enemies have so many eyes, so many tongues, so many scouts and crafts. I am in apparel to myself very ridiculous. I often change it and my name also. I read letters sometimes myself that in the front tell news that Campion is taken, which noised in many places where I come so filleth the ears with the sound thereof that fear itself hath taken away all fear.’ Now, there was an enthusiastic and not very wise young gentleman named Pounde, then an inmate of the Marshalsea prison— he spent most of his life in one gaol or another. He had been a member of the Catholic Association, and now was filled with fear lest if his friends the Jesuits were taken they should be accused of political designs, or that other calumnies should be spread to their discredit which they would have no opportunity 144 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE of refuting. So he managed to give his keeper the slip, rushed off to Parsons and Campion and begged them to put in writing a manifesto or declaration to the people of England stating the true object of their mission. This they agreed to do. Campion sat down at once, and in less than half an hour wrote his famous challenge ad­ dressed to the Lords of the Council. One copy was to be kept by the Jesuit so that it should be found on him when captured, and, in case it should be suppressed, a second copy was to be entrusted to a friend with strict injunctions to publish it as soon as, but not before, the apprehension. You may like to have a taste of Campion’s style. He thus states his commission: ‘ M y charge is, of free cost to preach the gospel, to minister the sacra­ ments, to instruct the simple, to reform sinners, to confute errors; and, in brief, to cry aloud alarm spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many of my dear countrymen are abused.’ He then asked for a triple conference in public, one to be held before the Queen’s Council, the second before the doctors and masters of both universities, and a third before the lawyers, spiritual and temporal; and as to the order of the Jesuits he thus boldly concludes: ‘ And touching our Society, be it known unto you that we have made a league— all the Jesuits in the world (whose succession and multitude must over-reach all the practices of England)— cheerfully to carry the cross that you may lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or to be consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted, so it must be restored.’ Campion forgot to seal the copy which he placed in the hands of the too eager Pounde. Parsons more astutely sealed his, and it is now preserved in the Jesuit College of Stonyhurst. Pounde, on going back to his prison, read the paper, was fired with zeal and excite­ ment, copied it, lent it (of course in the strictest confi­ dence) to this man and the other, till it reached the ears of the Bishop of London, who straightway removed REIGN OF ELIZABETH 145

Pounde, heavily ironed, to solitary confinement, laid hands upon half a dozen of his friends, confiscated ‘ their lewd and forbidden books/ and sent up a copy of the ‘ seditious supplication * to the Council, and presently to the horror of the Jesuits every pulpit was ringing with it. Campion had declared he was ‘ loth to speak anything which might sound of an insolent brag or challenge/ so naturally his not too modest paper was dubbed Campion’s Brag and Challenge. Not only was every Protestant controversialist eager to have a fling at the Jesuits, but spies and informers came forward, as Pounde had predicted, with many fictitious tales based upon a slender groundwork of fact. How were the missionaries to meet this storm, seeing that they dare not show their faces ? Every day proved more clearly the necessity of a printing-press which could return blow for blow instantaneously. If their adver­ saries had a right to attack them in print, surely justice demanded that the missionaries should have an equal right to defend themselves. Yet how was this to be done ? How could men who scarcely dared to sleep two nights in the same house superintend the management o f a printing-press ? Remember the conditions of the times. Professor Arber, a very high authority upon this matter, writes, in reference to the secret presses set up several years later by the Puritans (and his statements apply with still greater force to the circumstances with which we are now dealing): ‘ One of the most remarkable things about the Martin Mar-Prelate tracts is that they ever got into print at all. There was not a printer in England that would have dared to avow the production of them. The acquisition of a hand printing-press was a matter of immense difficulty, if not altogether impossible by any one outside the Stationers’ Company. No recog­ nised printing was allowed outside the metropolis, with the exception of one press at each of the universities. So the oversight of the metropolitan presses by the Primate and Bishop of London virtually created them censors of the entire English literature of the time.’ In September 1576 the Stationers’ Company instituted a weekly search of all the printing-houses in London. In May 1583 (two 146 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE years after the time of which we are speaking) there were only twenty-three printers in London, possessing in all fifty-three hand printing-presses. So that, as Professor Arber remarks, with the daily observation of his own workmen, the keen search of competition in business, the censorship of Episcopal chaplains, etc., a printer and all his doings were perfectly well known, even to the kind of type he used. Yet some secret printing had been already done by the Catholics. There was a certain William Carter who for ten years in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign (from 1563 to 1573) had been apprentice to John Cawood of the Stationers’ Company. He had also been a servant or secretary of Dr. Nicolas Harpsfield, a learned Roman Catholic divine who employed his leisure in the Tower of London in writing theological books. One day, Aylmer, Bishop of London, pounced upon this young printer and wrote in high glee to Lord Burghley, 30th December 1579, six months before the landing of the Jesuits: ‘ I have found out a press of printing with one Carter, a very lewd fellow, who hath been divers times before in prison for printing of lewd pamphlets. But now in search of his house, amongst other naughty papistical books, we have found one written in French, entitled The Innocency o f the Scottish Queen, a very dangerous book, wherein he calleth her the heir apparent of this crown. He in- veigheth against the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, defendeth the rebellion in the north, and discourseth against you and the Lord Keeper.’ Strange to say, Carter escaped punishment this time. But we shall hear of him again presently, and it is not improbable that he gave useful help and counsel to Father Parsons. A t any rate, in the winter of 1580, some young men of the Association and a few priests put their money and their heads together and set up a secret press. Stephen Brinkley was the master mind in the affair. They hired a large house belonging to a Mr. Brooks at East Ham in Essex, about five miles from London. Brinkley got seven workmen whom he dressed up in fine clothes as gentlemen—laced ruffles, cocked hats, and swords—and provided them with horses. Parsons shifted about from house to house in REIGN OF ELIZABETH 147 the neighbourhood and provided ‘ copy.’ The books when printed were* conveyed by night to London, and handed over by fifties and hundreds to priests and other agents who before sunrise had contrived to scatter them over the city in public places, in shops and stalls, and even in the houses of the nobility. It was a very risky busi­ ness. A rather large consignment of paper at one time called unpleasant attention to Mr. Brooks’s house. Then the parish minister with his churchwardens paid a visit to these distinguished-looking strangers who had come into his.district, and urged upon them the duty of coming to church— a very embarrassing invitation indeed. Mr. Brooks himself, who was not aware of the character of his tenants, became uneasy at the sounds of manual labour which reached his ears. The first book which issued from the press was some small book of Catholic devotion. Presently there appeared an attack upon two ministers, Clarke and Hanmer, who had written replies to Cam­ pion’s Brag and Challenge. A man named Nichols, who had been at the foreign colleges, turned informer and published some notorious slanders. A crushing exposure of the man’s character appeared almost instantaneously— no one knew whence. Then came Reasons why Catholics refuse to go to Church, purporting to be written by John Howlet, and dedicated impudently ‘ to the most High and mighty Princess Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen of England, France, and Ireland,’ with the imprint of Lyon at Douai. As far as I can discover there never was a printer named Lyon at Douai, and John Howlet was certainly no other than Parsons. The type was examined by experts who said, ‘ This print is done in England,’ and the hue and cry were redoubled. Among a number of priests caught and imprisoned at this time was one Alexander Briant, a known companion and friend of Parsons. Now was the Government’s chance. A t the Marshalsea he had been unsuccessfully tortured by hunger and thirst, but on March 25th he was transferred to the Tower of London for the more scientific handling of Norton, the great rack-master. A priest named Edward Rishton, then confined in the Tower, managed to keep a diary of what went on there. This 148 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE

was afterwards published, so we know pretty well the proceedings from day to day. Briant,' to begin with, had needles and pins stuck into his finger-ends, and at in­ tervals the question was asked, ‘ Where is Parsons and where is his printing-press ? ’ But not a word could be got out of him. Then came the Pit, the Little Ease, and the Scavenger’s Daughter, and at last Norton declared that he would put him on the rack and ‘ stretch his legs one foot longer than God Almighty made them.’ A s Briant showed no signs of pain and cried out, ‘ Is that all you can do ? ’ they said he was possessed by the devil; but as the poor man afterwards wrote to Parsons, though he felt little at the time the agonies afterwards were terrible. Parsons, like a prudent man, believed that there were limits to human endurance, and saw it was high time to move on. But his press was just then wanted more than ever. Campion wrote that he was now ready with his Ten Reasons, a sort of enlarged edition of his Brag and Challenge, written in elegant Latin and addressed to the universities. The book was to be got ready for the com­ mencement of the Oxford term, and there was no time to lose. The press was moved to Lady Stonor’s Park, near Henley on the Thames, and there set up in a cottage or lodge well concealed in the midst of a wood, yet with excellent means of transport supplied by the river. Brinkley and his men worked in hot haste ; the book was finished and bound at the last moment, packed off to London, and thence to Oxford as if by express train ; and there in the morning of the great day, to the utter astonishment of the dons and dignitaries on their going into chapel and hall, they found the benches strewn with copies— 400 copies— of the eloquent discourse of one whose name was still remembered there as one of the brightest scholars of the university. W ell, this was after a fashion a triumph, though short-lived. I do not care for the doctrine of the tract or the principles of the men, but it was a good blow struck for the liberty of the press against a barbarous persecution. Shortly afterwards Campion was betrayed by a false brother, tied with his face to his horse’s tail, and brought to London, amid the derisions of the mob, with a placard, REIGN OF ELIZABETH 149

* Campion, the seditious traitor,’ stuck upon his back; and again, a few weeks later, the press at Stonor Park was 'seized, and Stephen Brinkley and William Carter went to join their enthusiastic friend Pounde in the Tower of London. Parsons himself narrowly escaped. The pur­ suivants entered the door of his lodging as the wily Jesuit slipped out by the window. He fled to Normandy and there set up an English press with the assistance of a printer named Flinters at Rouen, and thence issued and sent into England book after book in safety, at least, to himself. So much for the Jesuits’ secret press in England. Its suppression only threw a greater burden on the importers of the books printed abroad. How were these books to be smuggled into the country, when every port was so strictly watched ? A priest could seemingly slip ashore from a boat, in disguise, more easily. In six months they boasted only ten out of fifty had been captured. But to disembark and carry off a cargo of books was a more difficult and dangerous matter. W e can hardly imagine a smuggler's cave filled with boxes of books. Yet the thing was done on a surprisingly large scale. In the very heat of the priest-hunting in 1581, Parsons was writing to the college at Rheims begging them to send him over three or four thousand copies of the English New Testa­ ment which they were there printing. The men to whom the books were consigned, the distributors and receivers, plied their trade at the risk of their lives, as we shall see. It may interest you to trace the passage of one of these contraband cargoes. A very clever manager in this business was one Ralph Emerson, a Jesuit lay brother who had acted as Campion’s servant or companion in his English mission, and who was described by the police as 6 a very slender, brown little fellow.’ After Campion’s execution he escaped to Rouen where he joined Parsons. He was sent again across the Channel into Scotland with Father Holt, who was to sound the religious opinions of James vi., who was thought at that time to be leaning towards the Pope. On his return to the continent from Scotland, he was commissioned to go once more into England as the com­ 150 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE panion of another Jesuit, Father Weston. He was first sent to Dieppe to make preparations for the crossing, and on 20th August 1584 Parsons wrote to the General of the Jesuits at Rome : ‘ Ralph has just returned from the sea, where he has been doing wonders. He has planned two new ways of passage by which he has sent in four priests and 810 books, but it has cost us dearly. Father Weston in another twenty days will be at the sea with Ralph.’ So Ralph set sail with Father Weston, a lay Catholic gentleman, and a good cargo : books of Cardinal Allen in answer to Lord Burghley, Apologies for the foreign seminaries, lives of the new martyrs, copies of the New Testament, etc. They landed safely somewhere on the east coast of England between two ports. Father Weston slipped away to the house of a Catholic friend, bidding Ralph remain with the baggage until he sent him at night a horse and conveyance. This was done and the books were taken to Norwich, whence there was a large carrying trade to London. Weston went on ahead and was to meet Ralph in London. He found the lay brother out­ side his inn with rather a dejected countenance. The innkeeper had had his suspicions, and refused to give up the baggage unless claimed by the rightful owner with proper credentials and permission. There was some thought of abandoning the cargo, but the brave ‘ brown little fellow ’— and I like him for that— declined to give up his precious books. The innkeeper had meanwhile opened the packages, Ralph was seized, and so secretly thrown into prison that his friends could not discover his whereabouts for more than a year. He was examined by the Lord Mayor, Lieutenant of the Tower, and by Topcliffe, the terrible priest-catcher; was transferred from gaol to gaol and did not get free for twenty years, when, on the accession of King James, he was banished the kingdom. One of the books smuggled over by Ralph Emerson was Allen’s Modest Defence of the English Catholics, which was described in the magistrate’s report as ‘touching some of the honourable Council.’ W ell, it certainly did touch some of the honourable Council, and in the following year a priest named Thomas Alfield was put upon his trial, REIGN OF ELIZABETH 151 on a charge of high treason, for importing copies of the book, with Webley, a dyer, for helping to distribute them. They were both hanged at Newgate in July 1595. Alfield admitted that he had brought into the country five or six hundred copies of this book. In the year of Emerson’s capture, 1584, Cardinal Allen sent over to the irrepressible William Carter, of whom we have already heard, a copy of a book called ‘A Treatise o f Schisme, showing that all Catholiques ought in any wise to abstain altogether from heretical conventicles, to wit, their prayers, sermons, etc. By Gregory Martin, licen­ tiate in Divinity, Doway, 1578.’ Allen wished Carter to print a new edition of the book. The whole impression was, however, seized at Carter’s house on Tower Hill and with it Allen’s copy, without the title-page, which identi­ cal copy is now preserved in the Bodleian Library. Carter boasted that he had struck off 1250 copies. He was arraigned at the Old Bailey and condemned for high treason on January 10th, and the next day drawn from Newgate to Tyburn and there hanged and quartered. The alleged treason was conveyed in a curious passage of the book in question, founded upon an incident in the apocryphal book of Judith. Judith, a beautiful young Jewish widow, you will remember, resolved to rid her nation of the impious tyrant, Holofernes, the Assyrian general who was then besieging Bethulia, a Jewish city. She accordingly adorned herself with her brightest jewels, went to the camp of the enemy and pretended to Holo­ fernes that she was ready to betray the secrets of her countrymen and deliver the city into his hands. She sat down to a banquet to which she had been invited by the fascinated general, and when his servants were dismissed and he was quite drunk, Judith took his sword, struck off his head and brought it in triumph to her people. Now the learned Dr. Gregory Martin, exhorting the English Catholic ladies to fidelity to their religion, remarks: ‘ Judith foloweth, whose goodlye and constant wisedome, if our Catholic gentlewomen would folowe, they might destroy Holofernes, the* master heretike, and amase all his retinew, and never defile their religion by communi­ cating with them in any small poynt.’ 152 SHAM IMPRINTS IN THE

For my part, I believe that Dr. Martin was not think­ ing at all of the assassination of the Queen, but after the manner of preachers was vaguely using the name of Holofernes as metaphorically representing the arch-enemy who was to be trodden under foot by the pious Catholic. But we can well imagine that Queen Elizabeth’s lawyers took a more realistic view of the dangerous passage, and Carter argued the innocent interpretation in vain. An important part in the manufacture of books is that of the bookbinder; and as the Roman Catholic books needed binding as much as Protestant books, our story of this contraband traffic will not be complete without some reference to the unhappy yet not altogether undeserved fate of Peter Bullock. There was at the time of which we have been speaking an inoffensive young apprentice in London, named James Ducket, who by reading these ‘ naughty papistical books ’ became a Papist himself, married a Roman Catholic widow, and with her for some twelve years, off and on, plied the trade of printer and publisher of Catholic books. It would have been better for him if he had done his own binding. There was once found in his house the whole impression of a little book on the Rosary, with pictures. For this Ducket and two of his printers went to prison for two years. It is said that out of the twelve years of his married life he had spent nine in gaol, which must have been a serious interruption to his business. Now Peter Bullock, who had occasionally done some book­ binding for Ducket, had been in prison for twelve months and was growing impatient. In the hope of obtaining his liberty he gave information to the Lord Chief Justice that Ducket had caused to be printed a Manual o f Prayers which bore the fictitious imprint of ‘ Calice, 1599,’ and that he had in his house to the knowledge of Bullock (who had probably bound them), twenty-five copies of Father Southwell’s Supplication to the Queen. Accordingly at midnight the house was searched, and though the books mentioned by Bullock were not found, the pursuivants were able to lay hands on the impression of a devotional book called Mount Calvary. A t Ducket’s trial Bullock, wishing to strengthen his evidence which REIGN OF ELIZABETH 153

had partly broken down, swore that he had bound for him a number of Catholic books, and among them Dr. Bristow’s book entitled A brief Treatise o f diverse plain and sure ways to find out the Truth or Motives unto the Catholike Faith, commonly known as Bristow's Motives, first printed at Antwerp. It is a remarkable fact that the jury, seeing there was only one witness against Ducket, brought in a verdict of ‘ Not Guilty.’ Chief Justice Popham was horrified. He stood up and sharply bade them think well what they were about, for Bristow's Motives were found upon Ducket. The jury of course reconsidered their verdict, and at once said Guilty. Sentence of death was then pronounced against Ducket, and the next morning he was carted to Tyburn, and in the cart with him was placed the unfortunate bookbinder. They were hanged together, 19th April 1601, but it is pleasant to know that Ducket on the scaffold kissed his betrayer and publicly forgave him. If the clock did not warn me that it is time to stop, I should like to have touched upon another phase of secret printing at this time, and that is, the circumstances which, by a curious irony of fate, led to the Bishop of London, who persecuted Presbyterians as keenly as he hunted down priests, being himself charged with connivance at unlawful and clandestine printing. The fact is, that at the end of Elizabeth’s reign the Catholic clergy fell out among themselves. The secular priests quarrelled with the Jesuits and their superior called the arch-priest, and appealed against his government to Rome. Bancroft, Bishop of London, thought it good policy to foster the quarrel and to secretly encourage or aid the party of secular priests in writing and printing a series of books against their clerical opponents. To what extent he did so we do not quite know. But certain books with ‘ Doway’ on the title-page are with good ground suspected of having been printed in England with the Bishop’s connivance. A year or two later, after the accession of James vi., a printer named William Jones, indignant at this complicity which he detected, but did not understand, actually brought before Parliament an Information or Petition setting forth the delinquencies 154 ELIZABETHAN SHAM IMPRINTS of the Bishop. He had, said Jones, sent into Staffordshire one William Wrench, a notorious printer of Popish and traitorous books, and when Wrench was apprehended the Bishop suspiciously obtained his pardon. Then there was Henry Owen, more than once imprisoned and released, and who got so bold at last that he contrived to bring his press in with him to the Clink prison and there printed Popish books, and yet when detected was set free by the Bishop’s means. Did he not also favour Valentine Symmes, and when Symmes angered the Bishop by printing a ballad against Sir Walter Raleigh, did not Bancroft exclaim, ‘ I could have hanged the fellow long ere this if I had listed ’ ? Jones therefore petitioned Parlia­ ment for a rigid inquiry into the conduct of these Popish printers and the Bishop’s relations towards them. Need­ less to say, the petition was quashed and the matter hushed up. But this is a wheel within wheels, and leads to a subject which still invites fresh investigation. DEVIL-HUNTING IN ELIZABETHAN E N G L A N D 1

I n the fervour of the Catholic reaction in the latter half of the sixteenth century, Europe seemed ablaze with miracles. Saints, it is said, flew in the air, were in two places at once, uttered prophecies, and raised the dead. England, the theatre of a supreme papal effort hallowed with the blood of many martyrs, seemed alone to lie under the shadow of a supernatural eclipse. There were miracles, indeed, but as a rule they were insignificant or ineffective. The miraculous cross of St. Donats was extinguished by a commission of inquiry. The sudden deaths of unjust judges or jurymen by gaol fever; the tide ceasing to flow at London Bridge on the morning of Campion’s execution; the voice from the Thames crying aloud on the death of the English Jezebel, ‘ Forty years of reign and an eternity of punishment! ’ and other like prodigies, either failed to attain notoriety or to impress the popular imagination. To this apparent dearth of famous miracles in Eliza­ bethan England there is on record one very notable exception. A t a critical moment of the religious conflict (1585-1586) there was manifested a group of phenomena in connection with the casting out of devils which has been hailed by Catholic historians as shedding lustre upon the fame of their martyrs, and adding new glories to the Roman Church. The prodigies in question were performed in the light of day, in the neighbourhood of London, in the houses of noblemen and distinguished Catholics—at Lord Vaux’s at Hackney, at the Earl of Lincoln’s in Cannon Row, at Fulmer and Uxbridge, and above all in Sir George Peckham’s house at Denham, in Bucks. The exorcists to whom the credit was given were a dozen or more of the best-known missionary 1 Nineteenth Century, November 1893. 156 DEVIL-HUNTING IN priests, among whom were several who in virtue of the recent decree of Leo the Thirteenth are now honoured with the title of Venerable Martyrs. Their leader or conductor in the affair was Father William Weston, Superior of the Jesuits, or rather at that moment the only known Jesuit in England, and afterwards notorious for the part he played in the famous Wisbeach * Stirs ’ ; while the most active of his co-operators was the Vener­ able Robert Dibdale, who was hanged at Tyburn on the 8th of October 1586. They were assisted by John Cor­ nelius, a ‘ covert’ or secret Jesuit, and Mr. Yaxley, both afterwards enrolled among the martyrs; by Ballard, a seminary priest, not a martyr, but executed for complicity in the Babington Plot; by Christopher Thules, who became prominent as one of the ‘ Appellant ’ priests; by Antony Tyrrell, who, after changing his religion two or three times, became for many years an Anglican clergy­ man, and by several others. The manifestations con­ tinued from first to last for about eighteen months, and from October 1585 to June 1586 were of almost daily occurrence. The witnesses were numerous and in high position. On one occasion there drove up to Denham House to see the miracles five coaches full of gentlemen, attracted thither by the influence of the priest Ballard, who brought with him for experiment a possessed person, Marwood, a servant of Babington. W ith Babington, a frequent visitor, came his friends, Gage, Donn, Tilney, Salisbury, and Chidiock Titchburn; and it is said that the spectacle of the wonders there wrought and the enthusiasm there enkindled hurried on these unfortunate young men to the conspiracy which cost them their lives. Five hundred conversions were made—some said one hundred every week, or several thousand in all. The story of the miracles was in the mouth of every Catholic ; narratives were drawn up and circulated by the priests. A young gentleman, an eye-witness, went boldly to Lord Burghley himself and swore that he had seen the devils like fishes swimming beneath the skins of the possessed. Lord Burghley laughed—he shut his eyes to the plain truth, said Father Weston—but for all that the Govern­ ment had reason, as in the case of St. Donats’ cross, to ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 157 fear the contagion of enthusiasm. For the devils were not only, under compulsion of the exorcists, giving loud testimony to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but were behaving towards the girdle of Father Campion and a bone of Father Briant as if they were the relics of saints. The singular character of the phenomena, the interest of their historical surroundings, and their close connec­ tion with the acts of the Catholic martyrs demand more attention than has hitherto been given to them. Much of the local colouring and the circumstances which would enable us to picture the scene have long faded from Catholic tradition, and the bare miraculous result has alone been proclaimed in the Martyrologies. The first historian to publish it to the world in print was Yepez, the Bishop of Tarazona, the confessor of Philip n., in his Historia particular de la Persecution de Inglaterra y de los Martirios, etc., printed at Madrid in 1599. ‘ Wonderful (says Yepez) were the things that happened in the exorcisms of certain persons possessed by the devil made by Mr. Dibdale, priest, who was since martyred, and by others in the house of a certain Catholic, where many persons of distinction met, with great profit to their souls. . . . The martyr Dibdale obliged the devil to bring up by the mouth of one of the possessed persons, balls of hair and pieces of iron, and other such like things which it was impossible could ever naturally have gone into, or afterwards come out of a human body. The devils all upon that occasion told what relics of the saints each one had privately brought with him, and obeyed the prayers and exorcisms of the Church, confessing and admitting to their own confusion the virtue which the sign of the cross, holy water and relics (as well of the ancient saints as of those that suffer in these days in England for the Catholic Faith) have against them.’

Bishop Challoner, in his standard work, Memoirs o f Missionary Priests, quotes this statement of Yepez, and confirms it with a contemporary relation, sent over to Douai College in 1626 by a Mr. Davies, which is as follows:— 61 met him [Dibdale] once at Sir George Peckham’s of Denham, beside Uxbridge, where he practised the office of exorcist, for there were three persons bewitched and possessed, two maids and one man. Out of one of the maids he brought forth a great needle at her cheek, and two rusty nails and pieces of lead. Her name was 158 DEVIL-HUNTING IN

Anne Smith. The other was called Fid, who after the apprehension of Mr. Dibdale became concubine to Bancroft, called Archbishop of Canterbury, and had a child by him as I have heard.’ Of Father Cornelius, Bishop Challoner relates, on the testimony of one who was familiarly acquainted with this martyr, that in the case of one woman— ‘ He forced the devil to bring forth from her inward parts a piece of a rusty knife of an inch and a half in length, which he took out of her mouth, and a bag of sand of the fashion of a pincushion and bigness of a little penny purse.’ In the Menology o f England and Wales compiled by the Rev. Father Stanton of the London Oratory, by order of Cardinal Manning and the English Catholic' Bishops in 1887, the miraculous gift is duly commem­ orated in the section devoted to the Venerable Dibdale. thus: ‘ Like a number of other missionaries of his time [he] was remarkable for the gift he possessed of exorcis­ ing evil spirits *; and, referring to the facts recorded by Bishop Yepez, Father Stanton adds, ‘‘'These wonderful occurrences were said to be the cause of numerous con­ versions to the faith.’ A natural and not irreverent curiosity asks how these things were done. The devout spectators in their sim­ plicity questioned the devil himself as to his share in the transaction. The judge at Dibdale’s trial and Her Majesty’s Privy Council were anxious to get at the bottom of the mystery. Justice Young, indeed, gave out that Dibdale had admitted deception, but the friends of the martyr confidently reported that in the presence of death he had solemnly sworn that what he did was done honestly and by divine power. But the matter was not allowed to sleep. Twelve years later there was discovered in the house of a Catholic gentleman named Barnes a narrative in English (afterwards known as ‘ The Book of Miracles’ and ascribed to Father Weston himself) which gave a detailed account of all the possessions and dispos­ sessions. Upon this discovery Frideswode Williams, the woman popularly known as Fid, then in custody, was examined on her oath by the Bishop of London, and made certain disclosures. But it was not until 1602 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 159 that the presence was secured of three other possessed persons— Sara Williams, the sister of Fid, Ann Smith, and Richard Mainy, gentleman. A ll four, together with Antony Tyrrell, one of the exorcists, who declared that he had had a hand in the compilation of Weston’s book, were now examined or re-examined by a commission con­ sisting of the Bishop of London, Dr. Andrewes, then Dean of Westminster, Dr. Stanhope, and others. The three maidservants were questioned upon every state­ ment made regarding them in the Book of Miracles, while Mainy and Tyrrell handed in written confessions. The Privy Council ordered Dr. Samuel Harsnet, then the Bishop of London’s Chaplain and afterwards Arch­ bishop of York, to put into print the sworn depositions, which he did with a vigorous introduction of his own, in a volume entitled: A Declaration o f egregious Popish Impostures . . . under the pretence o f casting out devils practised by Edmunds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, and divers Romish priests his wicked associates. Whereunto are annexed the Copies o f the Confessions and Examinations o f the parties themselves, which were pretended to be pos­ sessed, taken upon oath before H er Majesty's Commis­ sioners fo r causes ecclesiastical. A t London, 1603. A reprint appeared in 1605. In a literary point of view, Dr. Harsnet’s writing is a masterpiece of invective. It so struck the fancy of Shakespeare that he borrowed from it for King Lear, not only the names of devils and the mad fancies of the demoniacs, but even the phraseology of the writer. It is now one of the rarest books of Elizabethan literature. The title is unfortunate, for though there was imposture on a large scale, there is no proof, apart from Tyrrell’s belief or assertion, that the credulous and fanatical Weston was himself anything worse than a dupe. Harsnet, moreover, weakens a strong case by attaching too much weight to accusations of indecency and im­ morality brought against the priests by women smarting under a sense of injury, and perhaps eager for revenge. The evidence of the women, or rather of the two women Sara and Fid, must be received with more than the caution with which the exorcist received the utterances 160 DEVIL-HUNTING IN of their demons. It becomes of value when corroborated, as it frequently is, by its undesigned coincidences with information derived from independent sources. But the chief interest of Harsnet’s volume lies in the series of extracts which he makes from the Book of Miracles, and from a similar treatise in Latin, also ascribed to Father Weston, the originals of which are now, it is feared, irrevocably lost. These give us the facts from the exor­ cist’s own point of view; and it is but fair to listen to the explanations of the e possessed ’ when confronted with these facts. The mere fragments of the priestly narrative alone introduce us to a view of the missionaries at home as realistic and painful as Dr. Bagshaw’s picture of their prison life at Wisbeach. For the first suggestion or motive of the strange comedy we must look abroad. The idea of converting England to Rome by exhibiting the power of her priest­ hood over Satan was not original. The priests were con­ tinually boasting of what had been done in this way across the seas. The fame of the victory obtained over Beelzebub at Laon in the year 1566 had been lately revived by the republication of all the narratives and documents concerning it by Jehan Boulaese in 1578.1 More recently at Soissons (in 1582) similar wonders, which in like manner led to the conversion of innumer­ able Huguenots, were the talk of the whole country side. The Bishop, Charles de Roucy, was so impressed with the controversial value of what was going on in his own cathedral and under his own eye that he had notaries on the spot to take down the facts, and theologians to draw up a narrative in Latin and French,2 which he himself 1 Le Thresor et Entiere Histoire de la triomphante mctoire du Corps de Dieu sur resprit mating Beelzebub, obtenue a Laon, Can 1566. . . . Recueillie des oeuvres et actes publiques, etc., Paris, 1578. The interesting engraving representing the functions in the Cathedral is reproduced by Charcot and Richer in Les Demoni- aques dans t Art. 2 Cinq Histoires admirables tant en Latin quen Francois, ausquelles miracu- leusement par la vertu et puissance du S. Sacrement de Vautel a esti chasse Beelze­ bub prince des diables avec plusieurs autres demons . . . hors des corps de quatre diverses personnes . . . en cet presente annee 1582 en la ville de Soissons, etc. I have seen only the Latin edition with the title, Divina quatuor energumenorum liberatio facta apud Suessones . . . Earn scripsit Gervasius Tornacensis. Parisiis, 1583. This book and the Thresor are historically more interesting than any o f the narratives of the kind reprinted by Bourneville in his Bibliotheque Diabo- lique. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 161 dedicated to Gregory the Thirteenth, announcing the result as a notable triumph of the faith. Laon and Soissons were an easy day’s journey from the seminary at Rheims, and there was constant intercourse between the places. Moreover, in the very midst of the excite­ ment over the exorcisms at Soissons, on the 9th of June 1582, fifteen English seminarists visited the city for their ordinations. Between the proceedings at Soissons and Denham there was much similarity, and yet some notable differ­ ences. A t Soissons we read of the usual signs of posses­ sion— spectres, visions, and fits. The remedies are the sacred host, relics, holy water, and a moderate use of the herb rue. The devil is duly asked his name, which is written on a paper and burned; he is asked the cause and object of the possession, the means or conditions under which he may best be expelled, and the sign he will give of his exit, commonly the blowing out of a candle, or treading on a foot. If he is obstinate, or there is reason for postponing the exorcism— by a custom which has come down from the days of the Akkadians, who were, perhaps, the most expert exorcists of antiquity— he is driven from a dangerous proximity to head or heart down to the extremities, generally the left toe of the left foot, there to wait for more convenient handling at another time. But at Laon and Soissons all was done with a certain dignity and decorum, and with as little cruelty as the ritual of the time permitted. The bishop in each case presided, and when the crowd grew dangerous had a * theatre ’ erected in front of the choir, upon which he mounted with deacon and sub-deacon, the energumen, and his or her friends, in sight of many thousands. The people insisted that there should be no unfair dealing. When a young woman said to be possessed was taken for some weeks into the house of/the Dominican Friars at Soissons, there was a popular outcry. She was at once removed, and placed under the care of discreet matrons, who shaved her, performed certain mystic rites, and pro­ nounced her a virgin. The most novel and striking feature of the phenomena both at Laon and Soissons was the outspoken avowal on 162 DEVIL-HUNTING IN the part of the demon that the motive of his action was the confusion or conversion of the Huguenots. This was repeated again and again. The devil who occupied the body of Laurence Boissonet at Soissons even declared that he was there because three of Laurence’s relations had abandoned the faith; and he said, moreover, that he would only depart when the apostates had made their submission to the Church; and the devil was as good as his word. It is not surprising if so suggestive an idea should have taken root in the minds of the English missionaries. Antony Tyrrell tells how, after his arrival in England in 1585, he was met one day in Cheapside by Martin Array, a great ally of the Jesuits, who whispered in his ear: ‘ Be of good cheer. The king of Spain is now almost ready. It standeth us, now, that be priests, to further the Catholic cause as much as in us lieth.’ Then, refer­ ring to Weston’s successes with Marwood, he added that the Jesuit would make the devils themselves confess their kingdom was near at an end. Tyrrell threw him­ self heartily into the business, but being of a weak and sceptical nature he after a time communicated some doubts as to the reality of the possessions to two pro­ minent exorcists, Thomson and Stamp. Thomson urged upon him ‘ a holy credulity,’ and Stamp at Lord Vaux’s house insisted 4 that they were things of such importance as would further the Catholic cause more than all the books that had been written of late years.’ The personal possessions had been preceded by devils infesting the house of Mr. Gardiner at Fulmer, near Denham. Certain seers or conjurers came there on the 22nd of October 1584 to seek for supposed treasures. Rumours arose that the house was haunted. The Book of Miracles has it that there was ‘ locking and unlocking of doors, tinkling among the fire-shovels and tongs, rattling upon the boards, scraping under the beds, and blowing out of the candles, except they were hallowed.’ The first who was discovered to have the devil within him was Marwood, who, having lain out a night or two, half-starved, in a thunderstorm, was found scared and trembling, showing manifest signs of possession. Tray- ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 163 ford, the servant of Sir George Peckham at Denham, followed. Unfortunately, these two men escaped ex­ amination, and we therefore know comparatively little of their antecedents. With the other four we are better acquainted. Sara Williams was a smart Protestant girl of fifteen or sixteen years of age, who waited on Mrs. Edward Peckham, a daughter of Sir Thomas Gerard. She be­ trayed signs of possession in October 15 8 5 . A cat as big as a mastiff, so the priests relate, stared upon her with eyes as big as saucers. A dog of two colours, black and green, appeared to her, and she felt something entering through her eyes into her mouth, and burning her intoler­ ably. She showed a strange reluctance, it is said, to go into Mr. Dibdale’s room upon any errand. Her sister Fid, about seventeen years old, was washing Dibdale’s shirt in the scullery. He came and tapped her upon the shoulder. Her foot slipped and she fell, hurting her hip badly. The injury was at once seen to have been inflicted by an evil spirit enraged at her godly occupation. But before she could be dispossessed she must be reconciled to the Church. She was accordingly baptized, together with her sister, under condition, but with all the ceremonies which she well describes, and was then exorcised. The case of Ann Smith was peculiar. She was eighteen years of age, a timid and apparently modest and truthful girl. No one charged her with seeing spectres or visions, but she suffered from ‘ the mother,’ or hysteria, and was sent from her home in Lancashire to be taken care of by her sister, who was also a servant of Mrs. Peckham, then residing at Lord Stafford’s house in London. This sister, after visiting Denham to witness the exorcisms, came to the conclusion that Ann was possessed. The unfortunate girl was accordingly, in spite of her earnest protestations, taken to Denham, and there before long, as might be expected, had an attack of her old illness. Thereupon a priest named White dispatched Alexander, an apothe­ cary, for Father Cornelius, who was absent at Lord Arundel’s in Clerkenwell. Alexander’s horse reared and threw him. He accused Ann of bewitching him, and she laughed, and thus gave proof, if proof had been 164 DEVIL-HUNTING IN wanting before, of the devil within her. Her remon­ strances were of no avail, and she was exorcised ‘ from morning till towards night.’ Richard Mainy had received minor orders at Rheims, and when about seventeen years of age (September 1584) had put on the habit of the Bonshommes, or Minims of St. Francis de Paula. But after a few months’ probation he had grown weary of the life there, and returned to England. He was a sickly youth, and had also suffered from ‘ the mother,’ or, as a Scottish physician at Paris called his ailment, vertigo capitis. His brother, who had married a daughter of Sir George Peckham, took him to Denham. Here the women filled his mind with their stories. He heard of nothing but devils. He was told that the horse he had ridden was a devil, and that devils had been seen attending him in livery coats. The priests did their best to assure him he was possessed. They took him to see Sara exorcised. He finally yielded to pressure, and was given to understand that an insigni­ ficant and nameless devil had been expelled. Meanwhile Sara, who had been taken to Hackney, had a famous fit there on the 10th of January. Her inquisitive exorcist, contrary to all the rules, said, ‘ There is one here that hath the Mother, what sayest thou ? ’ ‘ That is a Mother, indeed!’ sneered the devil. ‘ Was there any devil cast out of him?’ ‘ Yea, a little one, but to no purpose.’ The devil then betrayed the fact that Mainy was possessed by a demon of high rank, Prince Modu. ‘ Came the Prince Modu to him to bring him from the house of St. Francis de Paula?’ ‘ Yea, in troth.’ The fatal news was brought to the young man by Mrs. Anne More ‘ with weeping eyes.’ The process of exorcism was truly a terrible ordeal. The patient was made fast to a chair—tied so tightly, says Ann Smith, that she bore the marks for years—and was compelled to swallow ‘ the holy potion,’ a pint of sack, salad oil, rue, and other ingredients. The de­ moniac’s head was then forcibly held over a dish of burning brimstone, asafcetida, and ‘ other stinking gear.’ Under the effects of the sickening draught, the stifling fumigation, the loud adjurations of the officiating priests, ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 165 and the cries of the excited bystanders, the patient struggled and screamed, talked nonsense, and frequently swooned away. The ritual used was most probably that of the Flagellum JDcemonum, published by the Franciscan Menghi in 1582. Mr. Stamp one day cried out to Sara’s devil, ‘ Ah, Sirra! . . . I have a whip in my pocket that will bridle thee,’ and he drew out a book of exorcisms. In this book, and others of the kind gathered together in the famous Malleus Malejicarum, will be found recipes for the concoction of a number of suitable potions and fumigations, with rubrics for their administration. ‘ If the devil will not obey,’ says Menghi, ‘ take fire and sulphur, and let the demoniac be fumigated, whether he will or no, until he tells the truth about all that you may be pleased to ask.’ It is particularly directed that the fumigation should be maintained ‘ for a long time,’ and the exorcisms for two or three hours together. The statements of the victims to the effect that, prostrated by sickness and fear, they were at times driven to attempt flight or suicide, and finally to seek indulgence and relief by yielding to the over-mastering wills of the priests, is at least not incredible. There was something suspicious in the death of Eliza Calthorpe, who, whether by accident or design, broke her neck down a pair of stairs. The bitter complaints of others were only received as promptings of the devil. Sai*a affirms that she held out against the temptation to deceive for six weeks. It is more probable that her compliance dates from an earlier period. Early in November, at least, her devils, as well as those of Marwood and Trayford, were in full activity. Before Christmas she was joined by Fid and Mainy ; and these three confess that they vied with each other in the extravagances of their tricks and pretences. They imi­ tated, so they say, all they had heard said or done by the demoniacs over the seas. They applauded Queen Elizabeth and her parsons, blasphemed the Mass, and gave absurd nicknames to the Mother of God. With diabolical in­ consistency they had visions of the Infant Jesus in the host, and saw rays of light beaming from the anointed fingers of the priest. At the touch of a relic, a cross, or a priest’s hand they feigned torture, and cried, ‘ I burn, I 166 DEVIL-HUNTING IN burn I ’ An exorcism of Marwood is well described in detail by Father Weston himself in his Latin tract. The Jesuit placed his hand on the man’s head. The demoniac fell in a fury, and made all to ring with crying, swearing, and blaspheming : 4 Take away that dreadful hand, in the name of all the devils in hell.’ But the Father would not quit his hold. He pursued the demon down the man’s back, his reins, his legs usque ad talos, and then fetching him back along the same route, finally grasped him round the neck. ‘ Deus immortalis/ ’ cries Weston, ‘ into what a passion was he then cast! ’ A combat of this sort between an exorcist and Sara—or rather Maho, a power­ ful demon who had been in England since Henry the Eighth’s reign and now possessed Sara—is said to have lasted seven hours. The most secular garment of the priest had the same supernatural effect as his amice or stole. A devil was removed from Sara’s hand by her putting on a priest’s glove. A t another time, when the exorcist was hunting one of her devils downwards, he failed to make the rest­ less demon lie still in her foot: it was discovered that she was wearing a pair of stockings lent her by Father Dibdale. This is the explanation of the Book of Miracles, though the ingenious Sara admits that it may have been her own suggestion. One night in November the same Dibdale, in accordance with the exorcists’ strange habit of conveying the demoniacs as if for public exhibition from house to house, was riding on horseback with Sara on a pillion behind him, from Denham to Fulmer, when the devil was so tormented by the contact that the girl could scarcely keep her seat; while, it is said, Trayford, riding some way behind, felt so keenly in his head the same radiating heat that he cried out in pain, ‘ Water, water! ’ It is impossible here to give anything like an adequate idea of the numerous ghostly apparitions, demoniacal utterances, and miraculous dispossessions recorded, with exact dates affixed, in the Book of Miracles. A pretty full calendar of such events might be compiled for the greater part of the year. There is, for example, some­ thing of note set down to the account of Sara alone for each of the first ten days of January. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 167 One specimen of what Mr. Mainy called the ‘ instruct tive questions ’ of the exorcists, with the answers of the Evil One—a catechism for the benefit of the heretics— may be quoted:

Dibdale. W hat say est thou to the Virgin Mary P Devil. O h ! she hath no original sin. I had not a bit of her neither within nor without. Dibdale. W hat sayest thou to Brian [a priest hanged in 1581] ? Came he into Purgatory ? Devil. Oh, no ! He is a saint indeed. He is in heaven. Dibdale. W hat sayest thou to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar ? Devil. It is the very body of Christ. Cut it and thou shalt see it bleed. The words of the demon carried with them conviction. Mr. Robert Bedell of Denham, who had been a zealous Protestant, was being borne to his grave during one of Mr. Mainy’s exhibitions. The devil within the young man cried out, ‘ Now they are about to bury Bedell, and because he served me all his lifetime I am sending him into hell.’ All the hearers wept for pity. The speech was reported to the widow, who, in terror of meeting her husband’s fate, became, and died, a Catholic. Improving discourses of this kind are not as a rule elicited from the demon until he can be adjured by name. When his true name is wrung from him the victory is almost gained. The names of the Buckinghamshire devils are curious, if not original, and their number is unusually large. The abundance of the supply, it will be observed, was a distinct advantage to the missionaries, for as fast as one devil was expelled there was another to take his place, and thus give occasion for new triumphs. On November 21, we read in the Book of Miracles, ‘ Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdicat, Cocabatto with forty assistants ’ were expelled from Sara. On January 5 it is recorded that ‘ being exorcised she prated, scoffed, and sang, called for a piper, and when the priest bade her tell him his name, made answer Pudding of Thame.’ But in the interval, or subsequently, she was possessed by Hobberdidance, Lusty Dick, Kellico, Hob, Cornercap, Puff, Purr, Kellicocum, Wilkin, Lusty Jolly Jenkin, 168 DEVIL-HUNTING IN Bonjour, Pourdieu, Motubizanto, and several others. Marwood was possessed by a Captain Pippin; Trayford by Captain Philpot, Hilco, Hiaclito, Smolkin, and Lusty Huff’ Cap. A Colonel Portericchio, accompanied by two captains and one hundred assistants, seems to have been unattached. At their expulsion the demons, many of whom had distinguished themselves by some characteristic devices, gave the expected signs. Hobberdidance was seen to vanish as a whirlwind, Philpot went out as a puff of smoke, Lusty Dick as a stench, the demon of pride as a peacock, and Smolkin escaped from Trayford’s ear in the shape of a mouse. Mainy had within him, besides Prince Modu, the representatives of the seven deadly sins, who were cast out with much appropriate acting on his part by Father Weston on St. George’s Day, in the presence of one hundred persons. The description of this scene, occupying nearly four pages, is quoted by Harsnet from the Priests’ Book, and it suggested to Shakespeare some features in the feigned madness of Edgar. But whence came the names? Sara, who, after Mainy, seems to have been the inventive genius of the party, says she found the most of them written under the hangings upon the walls of Sir George Peckham’s house, but she thought that the priests in their book put them in better order than she did utter them. Hobberdidance was the hero of a merry tale told her by her mistress. Maho was taken from a story read to her by her uncle. Pudding of Thame she remembered from her childhood. It is noteworthy that from the simple Ann, who saw no visions and uttered no oracles, a name could not be ex­ tracted. Father Weston, baffled by the taciturn obstinacy of her devil, turned for help to the more communicative demon of Mainy, who mischievously announced that Ann was possessed by a ‘ dumb devil,’ and that his name was Soforce. Mainy, who in the intervals of his devilry posed as a saint, had his revenge upon Father Weston. A t the beginning of Lent, which this ‘ dissembling hypocrite’ spent in Cannon Row, he pretended to fall into a trance. The Madonna and the angels appeared to him; and it was his amusement, so he says, to make Father Weston ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 169 and others kneel and worship the invisible presences. It was then revealed to him that on every Sunday he would have similar ecstasies and visit Purgatory, until on Good Friday he would in a trance depart this life and be carried to Paradise. On Good Friday accordingly the Jesuit summoned a large company to witness the dormition of the holy youth. Mainy made them a devout little speech, recited with them the Litany, and fell into a slumber. ‘ All present,’ wrote Father Weston, ‘ did verily believe he would never have awakened again.’ But after two hours, heaving a great sigh, he awoke saying, ‘ Our Blessed Lady appeared to me and told me 1 must live longer yet,’ etc. At this there was ‘ great muttering,’ and no wonder; but Father Weston fell to exorcising the young man to decide if it were all true, or whether ‘ the enemy ’ had sought to delude them. A word must now be said on the miracles made famous by Bishops Yepez and Challoner. How did the demons recognise the several relics which each priest ‘ had privately brought with him ’ ? Fid explains that the exorcists had a custom of thrusting relics, such as a piece of a martyr’s thumb or finger, into her mouth. Op­ pressed by drink and brimstone, she would cry out at the filthy objects. ‘ Hark,’ said they, ‘ how the devil cannot endure these holy things! ’ So when she and others named the relics, the priests bade those present note how the devil knew them : ‘ Whereas this deponent sayeth she and the rest . . . did know all these relics having the sight of them almost every day, and hearing the priests tell of whom they were. So that as soon as this examinate saw any of them she could name them very readily and say, “ This is such a piece of Father Campion, this of Ma. Sherwin, this of Ma. Brian, this of Ma. Cottam, this of Mistress Clitheroe.” 1 But what of the miraculous removal of knives, nails, or lumps of lead from the bodies of the demoniacs ? The discovery of such indigestible substances in the human body, or their ejectment by vomit or otherwise, is accord­ ing to the Manuals one of the most indubitable signs of possession. It is also well known that the swallowing of things unfit for food is a not uncommon symptom of some forms of nervous or hystero-epileptic disease. Thus Jeanne 170 DEVIL-HUNTING IN Fery, a religious of the ‘ Black Sisters ’ of Mons, who under the kindly exorcisms of the Archbishop of Cambrai had been made to drink a quantity of Gregorian water (March 21, 1585)— ‘ jettant des cris fort grands et lamentables vomit en un bassin d’argent, le Seigneur Archevesque tenant ses doigts sacrez en la bouche, une balle d’arquebouze appellee mousquette, accompagne d’un crachat sanglant.’ The Archbishop, of course, imagined that the disgorged bullet was an instrumentum malejiciatum. The circum­ stances of the Denham maidservants do not, however, suggest, as in the case of Sceur Jeanne, any acute natural disease of this kind; and on the other hand, the Bishops Yepez and Challoner claim both a miraculous insertion and a miraculous removal of the objects. In any case, should there still remain some uncertainty in regard to the actual facts and their explanation, a comparison of the impressions of the possessed with the stories of their exorcists cannot fail to be instructive. Fid is, as usual, very explicit: ‘ She well remembereth that the priests, filling her mouth with relics, conveyed in with them a big rusty nail, as she is verily per­ suaded in her conscience, so as when they pulled out the relics she was almost choked with the nail, and much ado they had to get it out. They made her mouth therewith to bleed, and‘affirmed to the people that it came out of her stomach by virtue of the said relics.’ Fid again tells, in some detail, the story of a discovery of needles, in which there is little trace of the supernatural. It is briefly this. On recovering from a fit into which she had been thrown by the holy potion and brimstone, she found two needles thrust into her leg, as she believed, by the priests. Distressed by the pain, she stooped to remove its cause, but was promptly hindered by the exorcists, who bound the limb with relics and bade her on no account disturb the bandage. Next morning after a sermon she was brought into the gallery, where Dibdale and Stamp ‘ very reverently and with divers ceremonies ’ untied the relics, and then crying out to the assembled company ‘ See what the devil had done!’ produced the needles. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 171 With the testimony of Fid should be compared the belief of Ann Smith, who was possessed by the ‘ dumb devil.’ The rusty knife, or piece of knife, which, as we have heard, was extracted from her cheek by Father Cornelius, is said in the Priests’ Book to have come from her mouth ‘ in one of her fits.’ Ann can only protest upon her oath that she was 4 fully persuaded that they said untruly, although at that time being wholly addicted to popery she did reverence them very much and durst not contradict them.'’ Anthony Tyrrell, on the other hand, in an emotional narrative which he wrote when under the influence of Father Parsons—a narrative which the Jesuit had pre­ pared for publication, but subsequently found reason to suppress1—gives an account of a miracle of this kind in which he himself had some part: 4 The wench [Fid] being cast into a slumber and the exorcist [Dibdale] being departed out of her chamber for giving the maid repose, the maiden suddenly awakened, crying out that a thing came running up her side and pricking her. I, being then present there, came presently to assist her, and besought Almighty God to help her, . . . forthwith the devil came up into her tongue blas­ pheming, etc.’ The devil, in fact, called for Dibdale: 4 A plague on him, let him come and take his needle that he com­ manded me to give him.’ 4 Why, where is the needle ? ’ cried Tyrrell, and he presently saw it come 4 peering out of her cheek.’ For some time he could not by any force pluck it out, the devil all the while urging him to tear the wench’s cheek. * No,’ said Tyrrell, 41 command thee to let it come forth without the maiden’s hurt ’ ; and lo ! the needle was extracted with the greatest ease. It is this same Tyrrell who, in his confession to Parsons, declares that he saw the aforesaid rusty knife taken from Ann Smith. His reports are, perhaps, the main source of the traditional narratives. He took an interest in these instruments, preserving them in his trunk, and he complained, or pretended to complain,

1 e The Fall of Anthony Tyrrell,* edited by F. Morris, in Troubles o f our Catholic Forefathers. Second series, p. 328. 172 DEVIL-HUNTING IN bitterly when they were taken from him to be produced in court. The testimony of this experienced exorcist would carry more weight if he had not retracted it. In his careful and comparatively moderate statement before the Commissioners he contemptuously refers to his own miraculous exploits and those of his brethren as ‘ things in themselves so ridiculous as I think no man will take upon himself to defend them/ and adds :

6 For although both myself . . . and so I think of the rest, did know that all was but counterfeit, yet for as much as we perceived that thereby great credit did grow to the Catholic cause and great discredit to the Protestants we held it lawful to do as we did.’ It is curious to observe for how long a time a dozen Papal missionaries, occupying Denham as a centre and travelling to and fro between several other well-known Catholic houses, associating with suspected traitors, and attracting crowds of Protestants as well as Catholics to witness these grotesque rites, remained undisturbed. But one day a Mr. Edward Ashfield incautiously invited Hampden of Hampden (i.e. Griffith, the grandfather of the patriot) to be present at the manifestations. Hamp­ den, once Sheriff of Bucks, in 1585 represented his county in Parliament, and was not a man to be trifled with.

4 “ Cousin Ned (he exclaimed), I had thought you would have brought me where I should have seen some godliness and not to have heard the devil, but this dealing is, I see, abominable, and I marvel that the house sinketh not for such wickedness in it,” and so he departed.’ With these speeches, if we may trust Fid, ‘ the priests were greatly amazed, and fearing the worst got them away for that night.’ Tyrrell, moreover, declares that divers ancient priests, Hey wood, Dolman, and others, shook their heads ; and those of the graver sort who were then confined at Wisbeach were greatly grieved at this introduction o f‘foreign devices’ by their younger brethren, saying that ‘ however they might be admired for the moment they would in the end mar all, and utterly dis- - credit both themselves and their calling.’ The end came, ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 173 about the middle of June, when a raid was made by the pursuivants on Denham House. They captured Driland, a priest, Alexander the apothecary, Mr. Swithun Wells (some time afterwards executed), and one of the man­ servants. Some other priests had taken warning and made their escape with Fid and Sara. Ballard and Dibdale were seized a little later. The former was hanged with Babington and his friends on the 22nd of September, and the latter, as has been said, in the follow­ ing month. The subsequent adventures of the women, as given in their evidence, are very interesting, but they do not concern us here. Fids account of her relations with the martyr Harrington is absolutely incredible—the hallu­ cinations perhaps of a corrupt mind. But, if only in fairness to Dr. Harsnet, some reference must be made to the apparently rash insinuations which, in no measured language, he makes against the conduct ot the exorcists. Even if all that Fid not very delicately describes were true, the priests might claim some precedent or justifica­ tion in the rubric of the ‘ Exorcismus vocatus Luciferina, pulchra conjuratio,’ etc., printed in the Institutio JSapti- zandi juxta ritum S. Rom. Eccles. (Paris, 1575), which runs 4 Hie signet omnia membra tam honesta quam in- honesta,’ etc. On the other hand, Dr. Harsnet’s in­ sinuations or suspicions are hardly more coarse in character or expression than those of Father Brognolo, who, in his standard work Manuale Exorcistarum/ pointing out with unnecessary and untranslatable plainness the well-nigh inevitable consequences of the objectionable practice in question, relates regarding certain exorcists in Lombardy facts which, if they had not come under his own know­ ledge, we might fancy had been borrowed from the tales of Boccaccio. The late Father Morris is perhaps the only Catholic writer who for the last three centuries has ventured to re­ open the question of honesty. He pleads that the martyrs were ‘ not the men to be deceivers/ and that ‘ if there was imposture [i.e. by the possessed] it was most likely sug­ gested by reality, and no end would be gained by any 1 Compare, in the Venice edition of 1720, pages 121 and 127. 174 DEVIL-HUNTING IN attempt on our part to judge of details/1 But where is there any reality, if by reality be meant something pre­ ternatural ? The witnesses—the three girls, Mainy, and Tyrrell himself—are agreed, and appearances are with them, in declaring that the impostures were provoked not by any real deeds of the devil, but by the manifest wishes, the suggestive questions, the tempting tales, and, they dare to add, the fraudulent practices of the priests them­ selves. As to the ‘ details,’ the writers of the Book of Miracles, by the words which they place at the head of their treatise, challenge investigation. They exclaim, apparently in the name of the dispossessed, ‘ Venite et videte quanta fecit Deus animae mege,’ and the challenge is virtually repeated by the modern Menologist. Let pass, however, as un­ essential, the mere material wonders—the phenomena of knives, needles, and nails—and regard exclusively the moral or spiritual side of the miracle, the casting out of the evil spirit—it matters not whether his name be Coca- battu, Fliberdigibet, or Pudding of Thame. Quanta fecit Deus animce mece ! There is, for example, Fid Williams, who, whatever her virtue as a maiden of sixteen, left the hands of the priests, according to their own account, an abandoned woman, the concubine of an Anglican arch­ bishop, and, according to her own confession or boast, the mistress of one seminary priest, if not of two. There is Sara, who in the matter of modesty was no better, perhaps worse, than her sister. Ann Smith may have preserved her chastity, but she has come to accuse her supposed benefactors of cruelty and falsehood. As to Richard Mainy, the more devils that were cast out from him the more accomplished impostor he became. If we are to judge of the result by any ethical standard, the martyrologist has little indeed to boast of in this affair of the Demoniacs. The very processes of exorcism were irregularly conducted, and were barbarous even for their age; while theologians of a century later condemn them as absurd, superstitious, injurious to the Divine Majesty, and dangerous to morals. There were among the sem­ inary priests many heroic men, preaching fearlessly an 1 Troubles. Second Series—‘ Life of F. W eston/ p. 99. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 175 unpopular creed and laying down their lives for the liberty to so preach. Some of these may have possessed high spiritual gifts, but in view of all the circumstances it were wiser for their panegyrists to be silent regarding the particular gift of Casting out Devils. LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF CARDINAL ALLEN1

It would not be easy to name a single Englishman of the Elizabethan age whose life and writings could give a better insight into the character of the political and religious conflict between England and the Pope, than those of William, Cardinal Allen. His intellectual and literary gifts, the virtues of his private life, his undoubted orthodoxy, his energy and tact, marked him out as the foremost among his co-religionists, at a time when they could boast of numbering two-thirds of the population of England. When Catholics were divided into many parties, he seemed to belong to none, and to command the reverence and affection of all. As originator of the foreign seminaries, and the Superior of the college at Douai, he became the recognised leader of the secular clergy, while to the end, or nearly to the end, he was the warmest ally of the Jesuits. His influence with the laity was unbounded. ‘ He possesses the hearts of all,’ writes Father Parsons, and it is suggested, with a touch of humour, that he is about the only man who can manage the unruly Earl of Westmorland. In a belli­ gerent point of view, his mere presence in England is reckoned as 4 of more value than several thousand soldiers.’ As a Lancashire man of good family, a Fellow of Oriel, Master of St. Mary Hall, and Canon of York, Allen was thoroughly English in his early education, while his hand­ some features, dignified presence, and courteous manners were only the least of the many qualities which fitted him to become the c Cardinal of England.’ No one could better represent the English Catholicism of his day, and no one could more faithfully interpret the policy of his country’s worst enemies, the Queen of Scots, the Guises, the King of Spain, and above all the three popes, Pius v., 1 Edinburgh Review, October 1883. 176 LETTERS OF CARDINAL ALLEN 177

Gregory x i i i ., and Sixtus v ., whose chosen mouthpiece and champion he was. Every document which can throw light on the prin­ ciples which moved such a man as Allen, and through him moved the forces of the Papacy at home and abroad in their crusade against our country, is a welcome con­ tribution to our knowledge of one of the most critical periods of English history. The movement of which Allen was the life and soul influenced deeply the whole current of English politics to the days of Catholic emancipation. That act of justice could only be obtained by his spiritual descendants when not only the remnant of his creed in these islands, but its representatives in the principal universities throughout Catholic Europe, had formally expressed their repudiation of the teaching which was as the very breath of his nostrils.1 W e are indebted to the Fathers of the London Oratory for a collection of inedited documents gathered with great industry from many sources, which, if not absolutely com­ plete, enable us to trace the steps of the cardinal’s career, and to understand his secret policy with far greater clear­ ness and accuracy than has hitherto been possible. The Letters and Memorials form the second volume of a series intended to bring to light certain ‘ Records of the English Catholics under the Penal Laws ’ which have survived the devastation of the colleges at Douai and elsewhere during the French Revolution. These have been largely extended by documents derived from our own Record Office and from foreign archives. The first volume consists mainly of portions of the ‘ Douai Diaries’ ; and the interest of the ample historical introduction pre­ fixed to it by the late Father Knox is made to centre in the person of Allen as much as it does in the second. Father Knox has not written his introductions without a marked apologetic purpose. These and other works which have lately issued from the Roman Catholic press on similar subjects seem to have sprung from the move­ ment recently made to promote the canonisation or beati­ fication of the victims of the Elizabethan penal laws. The

1 See the Answers of the Six Universities to Pitt’s Questions, Butler’s Historical Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 439-82. M 178 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS ordinary process for the cause of the martyrs was, in fact, instituted by Cardinal Manning at the London Oratory in 1874?, and the acts forwarded to Rome that the proper steps might be there taken for the final papal decision upon the matter. The list of these candidates for the honours of martyrdom is a large one. Not reckoning those who suffered under Henry v i i i ., the number of Catholics who were executed for matters connected with their religious or political principles between 1577, the twentieth year of Elizabeth, and the end of the reign of Charles n., amounts to 184 priests and 76 lay­ men and women, to which are added some 56 more who are said to have died in vinculis under the hard­ ships of their imprisonment. Many of these, whether guilty or not, were tried and condemned for overt acts of treason, such as conspiracies, real or fictitious, against the throne and life of Elizabeth, the Gunpowder Treason, and the Titus Oates plots; but the large majority were indicted under the Act of the 27th of Elizabeth, by which it was declared high treason for any English subject or­ dained abroad by authority of the pope to enter the kingdom. The laymen who suffered death were also for the most part convicted under the same law, which adjudged any one assisting or harbouring such priests to be guilty of felony. Father Knox in his introduction to the Douai Diaries, with a view to enhancing the glories of the martyrs, describes the growth of the penal legislation, dwells upon the religious motives which led to the establishment of the college, the innocent char­ acter of the studies pursued within its walls, and the heroic zeal with which the young missionaries went forth to give their lives for the salvation of souls. The. popular Roman Catholic view that the Elizabethan legislation was a religious persecution, pure and simple, is maintained throughout. Hatred of the Catholic faith is the only motive he can see in any of the queen’s pro­ ceedings. If the first half of her reign was less stained with blood than the second, it was because she had at an earlier period hoped to see the faith gradually extin­ guished by the dying out of the old clergy. Disappointed in this by the establishment of the seminaries, and by OF CARDINAL ALLEN 179 the unexpected revival of Catholicism brought about by the new missionaries, she became as cruel a persecutor of religion as, say, Nero or Mary Tudor. It is not to be denied that this view is capable of being presented with some plausibility if the penal statutes and the sufferings of their victims are considered, as they are, for example, in Bishop Challoner’s memoirs, apart from all their historical and political surroundings. It moreover gains strength from the untenableness of the common Protestant tradition opposed to it. The statement is often made that no Catholic suffered death unless convicted of having actually meddled with political intrigues. Some Catholic writers, indeed, have almost admitted as much.1 Yet this is manifestly not the case. Scores of priests were sent to the gallows without any attempt being made to prove them guilty of any overt act of treason beyond having deliberately placed them­ selves within reach of the law, which made the bare exercise of their priesthood to be, under the circum­ stances, in itself an act of high treason. Nor can it even be shown that in all cases the condemned man was given the opportunity of making any declaration of his allegiance in such terms as would appear to him, or to his ecclesiastical superiors, to be consistent with their theological principles.2 It is, therefore, not difficult for the Catholic apologist, by parading the horrors of an Elizabethan gaol, the brutalities of pursuivants and rack- masters, and the shameful barbarities which formed part of the legal punishment of traitors, to draw such a one­ sided picture of the conflict as to make the action of the State towards the professors and preachers of the Catholic religion appear as the mere wanton and bigoted persecution of an unpopular creed. Whether such men as Mayne and Campion, Garnet and

1 The authors of the Important Considerations (1601), quoted in Berington’s Memoirs of Panzani, p. 36. 2 Robert Drury, for example, executed in 1607, had signed the ample declaration of allegiance presented by thirteen priests in January 1603 to Elizabeth, which completely satisfied the queen. But he refused the oath demanded by James. He was ready to condemn the doctrine of the deposing power and to disobey its acts, but, in submission to the papal briefs, declined to qualify it as ‘ heretical.’ Compare Tierney, vol. iii. p. clxxxix, and Challoner’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 16. 180 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS Oldcorne, are individually worthy to be raised upon the altars of the Catholic Church to receive the cultus of the faithful, is a matter which must be left to the Court of Rome to decide upon its own principles. W e are here concerned with a point of purely historical interest, which is to determine the true causes of the penal enactments in question, and particularly of the sanguinary Act of Eliza­ beth’s twenty-seventh year. That there was much bigotry, injustice, and cruelty in the proceedings against all dis­ senters from the established religion, no one will deny, or that religious animosity was specially directed against the adherents of the Pope. The Reformers, as a rule, made no pretence of tolerating theological opinions hostile to their own, and least of all, the doctrines which they had just abjured. In Scotland, indeed, the mass was one day the established worship of the nation, and on the next was proscribed as idolatrous. It was a maxim of the Scottish Reformers that popery was idolatry, and idolatry was a capital crime which it was sinful for the State to tolerate. It is, however, the more remarkable that in the country where the religious character was moulded by that of Knox, there can be found but a single instance1 in which capital punishment was inflicted under the penal laws. In England, on the other hand, where queen, parliament, and judges uniformly protested to Catholics that they took no cognisance of their religious opinions in themselves, but only of treason and disobedience to the State, similar executions were almost annual occur­ rences from 1577 to the middle of the reign of James I., and did not cease till the accession of James n. In what degree these protestations of Elizabeth’s Government were sincere and founded upon facts, is a question of considerable importance in the history of toleration. The characters of Elizabeth, of Cecil, and the makers of modern England, must also depend largely upon the answer. Yet the opinions of historians are so far divided upon it that a final solution cannot be said to have been reached. Mr. Green remarks upon it, that ‘ to modern eyes there is something even more revolting than open persecution in the policy which branded every 1 That of the Jesuit Ogilvy in 1612. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 181 Catholic priest as a traitor and all Catholic worship as disloyalty, but the first step towards toleration was won when the queen rested her system of repression on purely political grounds.’ 1 If this be the whole truth of the matter—that the charge of treason was a mere pretence, an arbitrary stigma cast upon the Catholic profession to cover a religious persecution—the conduct of Elizabeth was without doubt more revolting than that of her sister. But was it a mere pretence ? Had not Elizabeth good grounds for her supposition that a vast conspiracy was directed against her throne and even her life by the clerical leaders of the Catholic party? Was she not reasonably suspicious that every newly ordained priest and every fresh convert, giving obedience to the pope, was an additional menace to the peace and liberties of the country? If so, whatever may be thought of the wisdom or justice of her policy, it is idle to speak of it as a purely religious persecution. This, however, is the question to which Allen’s Memorials invite an answer. The cardinal and the system which he represented have never had a more thorough advocate than Father Knox. But his zeal for the cause which he upholds has made him apparently blind to the effect which the documents he produces must have upon the mind of an unprejudiced inquirer. He has at least unwittingly done his best to show that only the ill-instructed and half-hearted Catholic could have been loyal, and that the sweeping measures of Elizabeth overshot the mark or were needlessly severe only because priest and layman as a rule proved in the long run to be good subjects in spite of their Roman teaching. It is not by any means pretended that Elizabeth had by one leap advanced from the persecuting principles of Catholicism to anything like our modern notions of toleration. Uniformity of external worship was then con­ sidered necessary for the preservation of civil order. An attempt made in Parliament to force upon the laity an internal acceptance of the Thirty-nine Articles, and to subject to penalties ‘ as in the case of heresy ’ any one who should contradict them by writing or speech, was at once 1 Short History, chap. vii. p. 401. 182 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS frustrated by the action of the Council. Nevertheless the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity gave to the executive terrible powers of coercing consciences in case it should be found expedient to rigorously enforce the laws. Under their pressure it would have been possible to compel any Catholic ultimately to make choice between death and the abandonment of his faith. As a matter of fact, however, it will be seen that not a drop of blood was shed under these or any other penal statutes until the conduct of Catholics had taken such a course as to provoke if not justify the severest measures of repression. A most important fact in its bearing upon this question is the singular tranquillity of the first eleven years of Elizabeth’s reign. Her title to the throne was confirmed by the unanimous vote of the Catholic bishops. The religious revolution which she at once effected made marvellously little stir in the country. About a hundred dignitaries of the Church and as many rectors of parishes refused the oath of supremacy and were deprived. Some of these went abroad, and there devoted themselves to peaceful theological studies. There is still much un­ certainty as to the behaviour of the nine thousand beneficed clergy who remained. Many hundreds were gradually and quietly dispossessed. Others were content to say mass in private and to read the Common Prayer in public. The laity were as a rule satisfied that it was lawful to attend the new services. The name of recusant was at this time scarcely heard of. The Catholic history of the period is almost a blank. The adherents of the old creed passively waited for a turn of fortune’s wheel, for the death of Elizabeth and a change of dynasty. The quiescence of their chief pastors was in some respects equally striking. Little or nothing was done to give spiritual aid to the Catholics. The idea of a missionary college did not come from Rome. It appeared as if the natural weapon of the papacy was the sword, and until the opportunity arose for using it with effect all merely ecclesiastical or missionary efforts were at a standstill. The first ostensible move of Pius iv. was naturally an attempt to get a nuncio received at the English Court. The reasons put on record by the members of the queen’s OF CARDINAL ALLEN 183 Council for refusing the request on the second occasion on which it was made (May 1561) are significant. There were ancient precedents for prohibiting the entrance of legates and nuncios unless upon their oaths that they would attempt nothing derogatory of the rights of the Crown. It was well known that the pope arrogated to himself the right of pronouncing upon the queen’s title on account of her illegitimacy apart from her alleged heresy. It is manifest, they say, that the presence of a nuncio would give rise to dangerous rumours and encourage disaffection. If it be said that no hurt is intended by the pope, the answer is that it is evidently (as much as in him lieth) done already. c The pope hath even at this instant in Ireland a legate who is publicly joined already with certain traitors, and is occupied in stirring a rebellion, having already by open acts deprived the queen’s majesty of her right and title there, as much as in him lieth, and why should we believe that this man would not do the like in this realm ? Yea, it cannot be denied but the last year when the Abbot of Sancta Salute (Parpaglia) was sent forth from the same pope on the like errand and came even to Brussels . . . it was purposed he should have done his best to have stirred a rebellion in this realm by colour of religion.’ 1 The presence of the Queen of Scots in England gave to Rome, in 1568, just the impetus which was wanted to stir the patient Catholics into rebellion. Some of the principal clergy living abroad—Morton, Harding, Staple­ ton,, and Webb—the last two being men famous in con­ nection with the foundation of the seminary at Douai, where they became professors of theology, now urged the pope to excommunicate and depose Elizabeth. For without this there was still but little likelihood of arms being taken up. Great as were the grievances of the old Catholics, their consciences did not permit them to hold that rebellion against their sovereign was under the circumstances lawful. They required instruction, and the clearly pronounced sentence of the pope. Father Knox is careful to point out to his readers, that the bull ‘ Regnans in excelsis’ was not published till the year following the rising of the northern earls, so as to suggest that the papal decree can have had no influence upon the 1 The document is printed in Tierney’s Dodd} vol. ii. p. cccxxii. 184 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS leaders of the rebellion. Their own confessions lead to a different conclusion. ‘ There was a scruple and division among us,’ confesses the Earl of Northumberland, ‘whether we ought by God’s laws to rise against our prince or no.’ The matter was referred to learned men. Copley, the priest who had reconciled the earl to the Church two years before, answered that they ought not to wage battle against the queen unless she was lawfully excommuni­ cated by the head of the Church. Another was of opinion that, having refused to receive the pope’s ambassador, she was for that cause already excommunicated, and this was reported to be the opinion of Dr. Morton, then beyond the seas. Francis Norton, however, confesses to Leicester and Burleigh that this same Morton was ‘ the most earnest mover of the rebellion.’ His first persuasion was the danger which threatened both their souls and their country by the excommunication, and that all Christian princes would, through the pope’s persuasion, seek to subvert the kingdom if they did not themselves reform it. He, Dr. Morton, had travelled through the country, and reported that he found the most part of the common people ready for the enterprise if taken at once in hand. Spain would (he said) come to their aid with men and money in a fortnight.1 The bull of deposition was, in fact, well known to be in preparation, though it was not promulgated till a few months after the suppression of the rebellion; and Dr. Morton, who had been sent into England by the pope in 1569, ostensibly for the purpose of bestowing certain faculties upon the clergy, was com­ missioned to make known the pontifical sentence and its effects. The evidence of Dr. Sanders on this point is indisputable. He says plainly, that Dr. Morton was sent ‘ to declare by apostolic authority to certain illustrious and Catholic men that Elizabeth, who then wore the crown, was a heretic, and therefore had lost all right to the dominion and power which she exercised upon the Catholics, and might be properly treated by them as a heathen and publican, and that they henceforth owed no obedience to her laws or commands.’ 2 It is well, too, to

1 Sharp's Memorials o f the Rebellion o f 1569, pp. 204, 281. 2 Tierney’s Dodd, vol. iii. p. 12; Sanders’s De Visibili Monarchia, p. 706. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 185 remember that, encouraged by such assurances, the earls, on the eve of taking up arms, wrote (November 8) to Pius v. for assistance. His reply, dated February 20, exhorts them to perseverance, and reminds them that if their blood should be poured out, 6 it is much more honourable to attain eternal life for the confession of God through a glorious death, than by living shamefully and ignominiously in obedience to the caprice of a weak woman.’ He promises to help them by obtaining the good offices of the Christian princes named, and also with money, as they will learn from his beloved son Ridolfi.1 Before, however, this letter was dispatched, the rebellion had suddenly collapsed, and terrible vengeance had been taken on all implicated in it. Pius v. was not discon­ certed. It was the opinion of his English advisers that the loyalty of the Catholic gentry as a whole was due to their ignorance of their religion. Sanders believed that if the ‘ pious design ’ turned out contrary to their hopes, it was partly because all Catholics did not yet understand that Elizabeth was legally declared a heretic. An impor­ tant paper, though of a later date, edited by Theiner,2 and ascribed by Mr. Simpson to Allen himself, addressed to the pope, under the title of ‘ A Short Note of the Standing Condition of Affairs in England, to show the Easiness and Opportuneness of the Sacred Expedition,’ may be fitly introduced here as a remarkable illustration of the clerical view of the situation :—

4 Sixteen years ago, on the bare intelligence of the intention of Pius v. to excommunicate the queen, manyfrose, but there was no foreign force to help them, and many Catholics held back because the bull was not published, and so they failed; but the abortive attempt shows their good will. The Catholics are now much more numerous than they were, and better instructed by our men and priests’ daily exhortations, teaching, writing, and administration of sacraments; so much so, that of all the orthodox in the whole realm, there is not one who any longer thinks himself bound in conscience to obey the queen, though fear leads them to think that they may obey her, which fear will be removed when they see the foreign force; and we have lately published a book specially to prove that it is not only lawful, but even our bounden duty, to take up arms at the

1 Sharp’s Memorials, p. 319. 2 Theiner, Annales, vol. iii. p. 480; Simpson’s Campion, p. 337. 186 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS pope’s bidding and to fight for the Catholic faith against the queen and other heretics. And as this book is greedily read by Catholics, it is impossible but that when occasion serves they should enrol themselves in the Catholic army. Because we still have, in spite of the numbers banished, nearly three hundred priests, in various noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses, and we are almost daily sending fresh ones, who, when it is necessary, will direct the Catholics’ consciences and actions in this matter.’

The writer adds, that he has in Rome a pamphlet in English 4 which we wrote some time ago, on the method of proceeding and moving the Catholics when the thing has to be done.’ This he proposes to have translated for his Holiness into Italian and Latin. If this genuine and candid memorial had been a forgery of Cecil himself, he could not have more exactly described the part he expected the priesthood to play in relation to the pope’s designs. The bull was dated February 8, 1570. There was difficulty in getting the Catholic powers to promulgate it. Philip was not ready for it, and therefore disliked it. It was, however, smuggled into England, and Felton, a lawyer, stuck it defiantly on the palace gates of the Bishop of London. The man was executed as a traitor, and, as a matter of course, was honoured by his Catholic contemporaries as a saint. Sanders, in his account of this ‘ illustrious martyrdom,’ well represents the sentiments of his more zealous co-religionists, and the tradition was carried on by Bridgewater, Wilson, Dr. Worthington, and, lastly, by Dr. Richard Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon, who in 1628 sent to Rome, by command, an official catalogue of all the martyrs up to that date, with John Felton at their head. The outlook of the Government was certainly alarming. Catholics taunted Elizabeth with showing signs of fear, as if in her heart she retained some superstitious awe of the papal censures. But she had good ground for fear. The bait held out by the bull to the ambition of Spain and France, might at any moment be greedily seized. The Queen of Scots was already a focus of disaffection within her kingdom. Even the material forces at the pope’s command were not to be despised., He could provide money and soldiers for OF CARDINAL ALLEN 187 invasion as well as priests to prepare the way. Her Catholic subjects, she was given plainly to understand, required instruction in the rights and duties of rebellion, and if the bull did not sufficiently enlighten them, Allen’s college at Douai, founded two years before, would soon be ready to pour into the kingdom an army of seminarists who, in the words of the above-quoted memorial, would ‘ direct the Catholics’ consciences and actions in the matter.’ But the ‘ Sentence Declaratory of our Sovereign Lord the Pope, Pius v., against Elizabeth, pretended Queen of England, and the Heretics who abet Her,’ gave no uncertain sound. The successor of Peter, who had ‘ by Christ been set up over all nations and over all kingdoms to root up and destroy, to waste and to scatter, to plant and to build,’ after reciting her numerous crimes against the Church, not omitting ‘ her obstinacy in refusing to allow the nuncios of the Holy See to enter the realm,’ and declaring in the fulness of the Apostolic power the aforesaid Elizabeth a heretic and an encourager of heretics, cut off from the unity of the body of Christ, continues:—

‘ Moreover, we declare that she has forfeited her pretended right to the aforesaid kingdom, to all and to every right, dignity, and privilege. W e also declare that the nobles, the subjects, and the people of the kingdom aforesaid, who have taken any oath to her, are for ever released from that oath and from every obligation of allegiance, fealty, and obedience, as we by these letters now release them and deprive the said Elizabeth of her pretended right to the throne and to every right whatsoever aforesaid. W e command all and singular the nobles, the people subject to her, and others afore­ said, never to venture to obey her monitions, mandates, and laws. If any shall contravene this our decree, we bind them with the same bond of anathema.’ 1 Thus the first blow was struck in the more than thirty years’ war which Elizabeth fought and won single-handed against the pope and his allies. The importance of the bull in its bearing upon the whole subsequent struggle cannot be exaggerated. It cannot be treated as an empty protest or as a mere insult, however exasperating. It was a direct incitement to civil war and foreign invasion, and the pope meant it to be so. Every Catholic subject of

1 Sanders’s Anglican Schism, Lewis’s translation, p. 301. 188 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS Elizabeth was commanded, under pain of anathema, to hold himself in a state of rebellion against her, by the vicar of Christ, an authority compared with which, as Allen had taught them, ‘ the power of all potentates under the majesty of the blessed Trinity in heaven and earth is extreme baseness.’ 1 The peril in which the country was placed by this pontifical act was imminent. The all-important question for the Government was how to meet it. Notwithstanding the lesson taught by the northern rising, it was still believed that the older or Marian priests—those at least who resided in the country —could be trusted. Watson, the Bishop of Lincoln, and Abbot Feckenham, heard of the bull with dismay. Men brought up in the traditions of Sir Thomas More would have doubted its validity. An able Catholic lawyer records his reminiscences of the feeling it created among a large class of laymen. He heard them avow that so deeply rooted in their minds was the Divine command of honouring kings, that no bulls to the contrary could alleviate their scruples in violating what they considered a clear precept of the natural or Divine law. Such a law, they argued, the pope could not dispense with.2 But it was foreseen by the Government that the worst danger lay in the rising generation, and the converts especially, who were infected with the reactionary teaching of the seminarists and refugees living on the pay and under the immediate influence of Spain and the Roman Court. The Parliament which met in April 1571 attempted to strike at the root of the evil by making it high treason to deny the queen’s title, or, what was now equivalent to it, to declare her a heretic. In order to cut off all communi­ cation with Rome, the penalty of high treason was also to be incurred by any one who should procure or put in execution any bull or instrument from the pope, or who should absolve or reconcile any one to the Church of Rome, or be himself reconciled by virtue of such instru­ ment. It was moreover forbidden, under penalty of prcemunire, to introduce any object consecrated by the

1 In his book on Purgatory, 1565. See Heywood’s introduction to Allen’s Defence of Stanley (Chetham Society), p. lxxii. 2 William Barclay, De Potestate Papce, cap. xxvii. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 189 pope, such as blessed beads, crosses, or Agnus Dei. The executive, however, showed no eagerness to make use of the stringent powers thus put into its hands. Three years later a batch of missionaries from the Douai College, which had been established in 1568, made their appear­ ance in England. They provoked little attention until the development of the belligerent designs of the pope gave their mission a more suspicious character. The first execution under the recent Acts did not take place until 1577, when Cuthbert Mayne, a seminarist from Douai, who had previously been a clergyman of the Church of England, was found with a copy of a bull promulgating the Jubilee of 1575—an innocuous and worthless docu­ ment—and an Agnus Dei. There was no evidence of his having been engaged in any conspiracy, and his convic­ tion, even if legal, was a political blunder. Nelson, a priest, and Sherwood, a young scholar, suffered in the following year for denying the queen’s supremacy or calling her a heretic; and these are the only martyrs whom Bishop Challoner ventures to claim during the ten years which followed the bull of excommunication, or indeed during the first twenty-one years of Elizabeth’s reign. Meanwhile the conduct of the popes was less patient and less pacific. Pius v. had been succeeded by Gregory xm.

6 It was far from the desire of Gregory x i i i .,’ writes Father Knox, ‘ that the bull should remain without execution. He saw too clearly the ruin to innumerable souls which resulted from Elizabeth’s con­ tinuance on the throne. As spiritual pastor of these souls, he was bound to use all lawful means to save them from perishing. Hence, not content with aiding by his munificent gifts the spiritual work of conversion which was being carried on by the colleges of Douay and Rome, the latter being his own foundation, he left nothing undone to impel Philip n. of Spain to overthrow Elizabeth by force of arms. Thus in 1577, when it had been arranged that Don John of Austria, after pacifying Flanders, should undertake the conquest of England, and place Mary Queen of Scots on the English thron%, Gregory xm. sent Mgr. Sega as his nuncio to Don John with 50,000 ducats in aid of the proposed expedition. A few months later in the same year he appointed Mgr. Sega nuncio at Madrid, with special instructions to urge upon the king the expedition against Elizabeth, and to offer on the pope’s part an auxiliary force of 4000 to 5000 men. The ill-fated expedition under Sir Thomas Stukeley, which was equipped 190 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS

by Gregory xm. and sent by him into Ireland, but which, by the treachery of its commander, was diverted from its destination and perished with Sebastian, King of Portugal, at Alcasar in Morocco, August 4, 1578, is a further proof of the pope’s zeal in the same cause.’ In the year 1580 this alliance between ‘ the purely spiritual work ’ and the ‘ force of arms ’ assumed a closer and more alarming character. Allen, who had in 1579 gone to Rome to settle some affairs of the English college recently established there, managed to procure the co-opera­ tion of the Society of Jesus in the work of the mission. In the summer of 1580 an enthusiastic band of priests, under the leadership of Fathers Parsons and Campion, made their way into England, whither a hundred sem­ inarists from Douai and Rheims had preceded them. The story of the Jesuit mission is well known. It was to have been supported, as Allen quite understood and the English Government also knew, by a combined attack from the armies of the pope and the King of Spain. The Prince of Parma was ready to descend upon England from the Low Countries. An invasion from the side of Scotland was to have been made with the connivance of the young king, who was believed to have been won over to the pope. Another attempt was to be made to seize Ireland. The death of Henry, King of Portugal, at the critical moment diverted Philip’s attention homewards, . and the formidable combination broke down. The Irish expedition alone was carried into effect. The pope desired it to be called the ‘ Holy War,’ and granted to the Irish rebels the same plenary indulgences which had been given to those who fought against the Turks. The bull of excommunication was renewed and published at Rheims, being posted everywhere about the city, whither the English seminary had now removed from Douai. And before the Jesuits reached England, Dr. Sanders, the friend of Allen and one of the most active and influential of the English priests, had actually landed in Ireland as nuncio with the papal troops. The new missionaries were not unnaturally regarded as recruiting sergeants for the army of invasion, and preachers of sedition under colour of religion. But even OF CARDINAL ALLEN 191 so it was not easy, or at least was not thought expedient, to bring them within reach of the penal laws as they then stood. When Campion and his companions were appre­ hended at the end of a little more than a year’s preaching, they were brought to trial on the testimony of paid spies and informers for a particular plot to assassinate the queen, of which they were manifestly innocent. The proceedings were not creditable to the administration of justice. But the thoroughly unsatisfactory answers given by the greater part of the prisoners to the famous Six Questions, which in fact sealed their fate, brought out clearly once for all the doctrine of the missionaries upon the deposing power and its incompatibility with their allegiance to their sovereign. Rishton, a secular priest, Bosgrave, an ill-instructed young Jesuit not connected with the mission, and Orton, a layman, saved their lives by declaring that if the pope should attempt to enforce the bull they would take sides with the queen against him. Those who were condemned and executed, twelve priests in all, suffered certainly not for their religious profession, nor for any article of their creed, nor for any merely speculative opinion on the papal power. In the eyes of the Government they were agents and spies of the pope, who was in arms against the country, and their teaching was practically subversive of order and a direct provocation to rebellion. Immediately after the death of Campion, papers dis­ covered upon one of his companions disclosed to Cecil that the Jesuits were in fact officially promulgating the bull of deposition in a new and insidious form. Campion before his start from Rome had urged upon the Roman Court that the bull ‘ procured much severity in England and the heavy hand of her Majesty against the Catholics.’ This enthusiastic but truly gentle and amiable priest would perhaps personally have been pleased to see it altogether suspended. But all that he could obtain was a ‘ mitigation ’ of the sentence, and the Jesuits accordingly brought with them a, formal document from the pope to that effect. By these ‘ faculties,’ granted April 14, 1580, the bull was to bind the queen as before, but, apparently for the better protection of the faithful and for the 192 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS removal of their scruples, it was by no means to bind Catholics as matters now stood (rebus sic stantibus), but only at such a time when its public execution should be practicable.1 That is, Catholics were by favour of the pope allowed to obey, and consequently without risking their salvation to protest their allegiance to, Elizabeth as their sovereign de facto, until the favourable moment for insurrection should arrive. When matters were ready, as we have seen from the memorial above quoted, the priests would be instructed to give the signal. The 4 mitigation,’ as Mr. Simpson puts it, would appear like a truce obtained upon false pretences by one belligerent party in order to gain time for a fresh attack. It clearly aggravated the difficulties of the Government in discover­ ing the disaffected. Moreover the missionaries, who hitherto had no positive commission to deal with the bull, were now made active parties to it. In proclaiming the mitigation they effectively renewed the original sentence with the very significant hint contained in the rebus sic stantibus. This was no doubt one of the motives which drove the Parliament of 1585 to make short work for the judges in proving distinct acts of treason against Jesuits and seminarists by declaring their mission to be high treason in itself. There is another fact in connection with the Jesuit mission of 1580 which, if we are to judge fairly of this terrible statute, deserves attention. The older Catholics, who felt, as Campion put it, 4 the heavy hand of her Majesty; in consequence of the bull, were naturally jealous of any priestly interference with matters of State which might still further embitter their position. It was necessary for the new comers to disarm such fears, and to give evidence of the 4 purely spiritual ’ character of their mission. A synod was convened in Southwark, where some of the leading clergy and laity were present. Here Father Parsons, who was at the head of the expedition, made solemn oath that they came only to treat of matters of religion in truth and simplicity, and were strictly forbidden by their superiors to meddle with or even speak

1 ‘ Catholicos vero nullo modo obliget rebus sic stantibus sed turn demum quando publica ejusdem bull* executio fieri poterit. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 193 of State affairs.1 This command and the obedience which it is supposed to imply are often referred to in proof of the innocent work upon which all the Jesuits were engaged. But it is notorious that Father Parsons occupied himself incessantly during his stay in England with political intrigues. His more single-minded com­ panion may have been sanguine enough to imagine that he could bring back England to the pope by the rhetoric of his ‘ Ten Reasons,’ but Parsons knew better. The work of making converts was to him subordinate to that of making soldiers and traitors. He believed England could only be made Catholic by force. As Father Knox gently explains, ‘ he lost no opportunities of acquainting himself with the political state and sentiments of the Catholic body, and he enjoyed quite exceptional means of gaining this information through the many Catholic gentlemen who spoke to him on the subject when treat­ ing with him of their consciences.’ The result of his inquiries will be presently seen in the memorandum drawn up by him, which will enable us to estimate the value of his solemn declaration that he and his associates came to deal exclusively with spiritual concerns. On the capture of Campion, Parsons quickly made his escape across the Channel, arriving at Rouen in the autumn of 1581; and it is at this point that the Letters and Memorials more particularly take up the story; and Allen shortly becomes the centre of interest. Father Knox, indeed, insists that previously to this date Allen took no active part in political enterprises, but remarks that when summoned to do so by the pope as he now was, it can ‘ neither excite surprise nor be looked upon as blameworthy if he should have entered upon his new sphere of work willingly; . . . rather his conduct would have been simply unintelligible if he had field aloof.’ Allen himself in his Apologie for the English seminaries, published in 1581, declares, ‘ invocating upon his soul,’ that he heard nothing when at Rome in the winter of

1 Simpson’s Campion, p. 130. They were in fact forbidden so to do, ‘ except perhaps in the company of those whose fidelity has been long and steadfast, and even then not without strong reasons/ Ibid. p. 100, and Douay Diaries, Introd. p. lxvi. 194 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS

1579-80 of any confederation of the pope, the Kang of Spain, and other princes for the invasion of the realm. He moreover protests that the seminarists knew nothing of the present troubles in Ireland otherwise than by the common bruit of the world. Therefore to rack these poor innocent persons, he complains, 4 is a lamentable and rare case in our government, specially in the clement reign of her Majesty’— so Allen could speak in the twenty- second year of that reign. fi Imagine ye, the Italian Government and especially the papacy to be so discreetly managed that every poor priest and scholar in the city knoweth the pope’s secrets ? ’ Mr. Simpson, a most competent and a not unfavourable judge of Allen, admits nevertheless that he was deeply implicated in the plots of the day, and points in proof of treasonable matter to his letter to the Cardinal of Como, September 1580,1 contain­ ing a passionate appeal to the pope for aid at the very time of the papal descent upon Ireland. The letter of Dr. Sanders 4 to the right worshipful Mr. Doctor Allen,’ dated as far back as November 1577, from Madrid, doubtless made the English Government, into whose hands it fell, take the same view. 41 beseech you,’ writes Sanders to his friend,4 to take hold of A (the pope), for the X (the King of Spain) is as fearful of war as a child of fire. . . . The A (pope) will give two thousand (men) when you shall be content with them. If they do not serve to go to England, at the least they will serve to go into Ireland. The state o f Christendom dependeth upon the stout assailing of England.’ But to return to the course of events. Father Parsons on reaching Rouen placed himself at once in communication with the Duke of Guise, who for the last three years had been scheming the rescue of the Queen of Scots. The most practicable road to the invasion of England seemed at this moment to lie through Scotland. Esme Stuart, the Duke of Lennox, was exercising great influence over his royal cousin, and was already intriguing with Watts, a secular priest, and 1 It should be noted by the way that in this letter ( Memorials, p. 91) Allen lets the admission escape him that on the side of England the conflict was not a question of religion, but of the stability of the empire : f planumque redditur omnibus non jam de religione, quam hostes nullam habent, sed de firmitate imperii et terrenae felicitatis agi et certari.' OF CARDINAL ALLEN 195 Holt, an English Jesuit, whom Parsons, before he left England, had sent into the kingdom. William Creighton, another Jesuit, was now dispatched from Rome to Scotland, with orders from the General of the Society to take directions for his mission from Parsons at Rouen on his way. The two Jesuits accordingly conferred with the Duke of Guise ‘ about the advancement of the Catholic cause in both realms of England and Scotland, and for the deliverance of the Queen of Scots.’ On returning from his visit to Lennox, in April 1582, Creighton met the Archbishop of Glasgow, Allen, Par-' sons, and the Duke of Guise. Mgr. Castelli, Bishop of Rimini, the nuncio at Paris, thus reports to the Cardinal of Como, papal Secretary of State, the results of the priestly conspiracy. Guise, finding the Catholics of England well disposed, will undertake the invasion, by assailing the country unexpectedly from several points. The Irish, who are still at war with the queen, are to be stirred up. But nothing can be done just now because of the illness of Parsons, who ‘ has arrived from England, where he has had this affair on hand for the last two years, and has in his mind all that should be done.’ The Jesuits hope that the pope ‘ will not let slip so fine an opportunity of bringing back two kingdoms to the faith of Christ without much temporal loss, and I do not doubt’ (adds the nuncio) ‘ but that his Holiness will be ready on his part to embrace this glorious enterprise.’ After a few days we find that the two Jesuits (Father Parsons having recovered) were at Paris in conference with J. B. Tassis, the agent of the Spanish king, who sends a full and interesting report of the interview to Philip. He tells how Father Creighton had held com­ munication with Lennox, ‘ first by letters carried to him very secretly, and once afterwards in person a*£ a castle of his to which he had come under cover of other business,’ and how at this interview there was present another Jesuit, an Englishman (Holt). In consequence of the information of the two priests, Lennox had agreed to undertake the proposal of the pope and of the king on certain conditions. ‘ There must be placed in Scotland by next autumn 20,000 men, paid for eighteen months, 196 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS consisting of Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and Swiss.’ Munitions of war and sums of money are likewise specified.

c When,’ continues Tassis, 4 this Scotch father had finished all he had to say to me, the English one (Parsons) began assuring me that the Catholics in England were extremely desirous that this design should be carried out, and that arms should be taken up in Scotland for the restoration of the Catholic religion and the deliverance of the Queen of Scotland, for that if this were done with a well-grounded prospect of success, they would do the same and hasten to the camp which would be formed in Scotland whenever it should be necessary. To effect this, things were in a very good state, for all that part which borders upon Scotland is full of Catholics, and there too lie the estates of the Earl of Westmorland, whom your Majesty main­ tains in Flanders, and whom they think of summoning for this affair, and there also is a certain bishopric of great jurisdiction (Durham) to which they would wish his Holiness to name some influential person, who when he had possession of it would be able to raise the people, and there are many other persons who would do the same in other districts, since (as he assures me) England is so full of Catholics that it could not be believed. When I asked him what security they have for all this . . . he answered me that he knew all this from what many of them had declared when he had treated with them of their consciences; and that in regard to this, things had gone so far that there could be no doubt about it, and that most certainly England was very well disposed at the present time for this move­ ment being attempted there.1 Tassis further reports that in a few days a final con­ ference was to take place between the duke, the Arch­ bishop of Glasgow, and Allen, ‘ through whose hands likewise,’ he remarks, 6 the affair must have passed from the beginning.’ Meanwhile the Earl of Westmorland and Lord Dacre had written from Tournai to Allen (May 5, 1583), ‘ Next unto God of all our nation we do repose a most special trust and affiance in you . . . we hereby have wholly resigned and committed ourselves to be ordered by you ’ ; and they accordingly gave him full authority and commission to make what promises or arrangements he may think fit in their name. Another interesting letter from the nuncio to the Car­ dinal of Como, on May 22, incloses the memorandum of Parsons, already referred to. Father Knox attaches such importance to this document that he reprints it in both OF CARDINAL ALLEN 197

Italian and English in the Letters and Memorials, although it had been already published by him in the appendix to the Douay Diaries. It is necessary to the enterprise, writes the Jesuit, to appoint secretly a Bishop of Durham, who must be a man of credit and repute. There is no one who possesses the requisite qualities better than Mr. Allen. All the banished gentlemen bear him such reverence, that at a word of his they would do anything, much more if he were in some post of dignity.

‘ It will be necessary that Mr. Allen be speedily apprised of the intention of his Holiness, that he may dispose of certain persons, so as to have them in readiness against that tim e; and that he may also write and print secretly certain books which we are writing at this moment, with the view of satisfying the people of England ; and again may make many other necessary preparations both as regards himself, for it is essential that he be there in person, otherwise the affairs in England will not go well, in my opinion, and in respect to other gentlemen, whom he must find means, as he will do, to send secretly in disguise into Scotland. Moreover, at the proper time the principal Catholics in England will receive information o f the affair by means o f the priests. But this will not be done until just before the commencement of the enterprise, for fear of its becoming known, since the soul of this affair is its secrecy. . . . Lastly, I have to offer to your most reverend lordship, in the name of all the Catholics of England, their life, their goods, and all that lies within their power, for the service of God and his Holiness in this enterprise, which they desire so earnestly.’

After much correspondence and discussion, a meeting took place at the end of May, in Paris, at which, besides those already mentioned, there were present Father Claude Mathieu, provincial of the French Jesuits and confessor of the Duke of Guise. A plan was finally agreed upon which Parsons was deputed to carry to t Philip ii., while Creighton was sent to Rome bearing with him a letter from Allen, who was ‘ now* at length (according to Father Knox) launched upon the sea of political transactions, and his great gifts, moral and intellectual, soon placed him in the first rank among his compeers.’ Events in Scotland— the raid of Ruthven, and the flight of Lennox— once more disturbed the calculations of the confederates. Negotiations continued awhile between 198 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS Philip and the Duke of Guise. A Jesuit father was sent disguised to the Queen of Scots, and the duke was anxiously waiting to learn what other arrangements the father had made with the gentlemen of England about the affair in hand. The death of Lennox, May 26, 1583, made it necessary to start afresh from a new basis. But just before this event, May 2, the nuncio dispatched to the Cardinal of Como a letter which perhaps throws more light upon the character of the ‘ Holy W ar’ than any other in the volume. It shall be given in full.

‘ The Duke of Guise and the Duke of Mayenne have told me that they have a plan for killing the Queen of England by the hand of a Catholic, though not one outwardly, who is near her person and is ill-affected towards her for having put to death some of his Catholic relations. The man, it seems, sent word of this to the Queen of Scotland, but she refused to attend to it. He was, however, sent hither, and they have agreed to give him, if he escapes, or else his sons, 100,000 francs, as to which he is satisfied to have the security of the Duke of Guise for 50,000, and to see the rest deposited with the Archbishop of Glasgow in a box, of which he will keep the key, so that he or his sons may receive the money should the plan succeed, and the duke thinks it may. The duke asks for no assist­ ance from our lord (the pope) for this affair; but when the time comes he will go to a place of his near the sea to await the event and then cross over on a sudden into England. As to putting to death that wicked woman, I said to him that I will not write about it to our lord the pope (nor do I), nor tell your most illustrious lordship to inform him of i t ; because, though I believe our lord the pope would be glad that God should punish in any way whatever that enemy of His, still it would be unfitting that His vicar should procure it by these means. The duke was satisfied; but later on he ' added that for the enterprise of England, which in this case would be much more easy, it will be necessary to have here in readiness money to enlist some troops to follow him, as he intends to enter England immediately, in order that the Catholics may have a head. He asks for no assistance for his passage across; but as the Duke of Mayenne must remain on the Continent to collect some soldiers to follow him (it being probable that the heretics who hold the treasure, the fleet, and the ports may not be wanting to themselves, so that it will be necessary to resist them), he wishes that for this purpose 100,000, or at least 80,000, crowns should be ready here. I let him know the agreement which there is between our lord the pope and the Catholic king with regard to the contribution, and I told him that on our lord the pope’s part he may count on every possible assistance when the Catholic king does his part. The agent of Spain OF CARDINAL ALLEN 199

believes that his king will willingly give the aid, and therefore it will be well, in conformity with the promises so often made, to consider how to provide this sum, which will amount to 20,000 crowns from our lord the pope, if the Catholic king gives 60,000. God grant that with this small sum that great kingdom may be gained. The Queen of Scotland wrote the other day that she had won over the earl (of Shrewsbury), her keeper, and that she is sure of being able to free herself when she pleases, but that she wishes to wait for a good opportunity. Independently of this plan, the Duke of Guise expects in a few days information from four principal gentlemen in England, and he will let me know the result; mean­ while he has nothing of moment from Scotland or England to tell me.’ On the 23rd of May, the Cardinal of Como replies :—

61 have reported to our lord the pope what your lordship has written to me in cipher about the affairs of England, and since his Holiness cannot but think it good that this kingdom should in some way or other be relieved from oppression and restored to God and our holy religion, his Holiness says that in the event of the matter being effected there is no doubt that the 80,000 crowns will be, as your lordship says, very well employed. His Holiness will therefore make no difficulty about paying his fourth when the time comes, if the agents of the Catholic king do the same with the three-fourths.’ A t the same time Tassis was more cautiously approach­ ing the King of Spain on behalf of the murderous project. He writes to Philip, May 4 :— ‘ I understand that he (the Duke of Guise) is following such plans as may well meet with success, and if they do succeed it will be very necessary for me to have at hand a provision of money with which to assist him at once, and particularly as regards one project, which on account of the risk I dare not set down here, but which will make a noise if it succeeds; and if it does not I shall be able some day with some security to send word about it, for to delay doing so is of no consequence.’ Philip, in reply, is willing to contribute 100,000 crowns, and writes to Mendoza, his ambassador in Eng­ land, approving the advice he had given to the Queen of Scots, not to leave the kingdom even if she could, as circumstances might arise when it would be very advantageous that the Catholics should find her ready at hand. The plan of assassination, however, fell through, and on June 24 Tassis was able to write to the king 200 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS more openly. ‘ The project which Hercules (the Duke of Guise) was pursuing, and which I intimated to your Majesty on May 4, was a deed o f violence against this lady, from whom some one, perhaps from motives of interest, was to have freed him, and it has, I see, for the .present quite disappeared, without any further mention being made of it.’ The king underlined the words marked in italics, and wrote on the margin, ‘ It was thus, I believe, that we understood it here; and if they had done it, it would have been no harm, though they should have made provision of certain things beforehand.’ With these documents must be compared a curious paragraph in a letter written many years later by Father Parsons to Don Juan d’ldiaquez (June 30, 1597), in which the Jesuit distinctly makes the Queen of Scots privy to the plot of assassination. His memory may have been at fault, as Father Knox suggests, but apart from the statement of fact, the passage is interesting as exhibiting the light in which the transaction appeared to the moral sense of the writer. Parsons complains that under the evil influence of his enemies, Morgan and Paget, Mary had been led to make unfair complaints against the Duke of Guise. She wrote, he says,— ‘ to reprehend the duke and the Archbishop of Glasgow for having omitted to supply a certain sum of money, on the petition of Morgan and Paget, to a certain young gentleman in England [his initials, J. G., are written on the margin], who, in consideration of the reward, had promised them, so they persuaded her Majesty, to murder the Queen of England. The fact was that the duke and the archbishop understood that the party in question (his name is here omitted because he is still living) was a worthless fellow, and. would do nothing, as it eventually turned out, and on this account they refused the money. Y et for this it was that Paget and Morgan induced the queen to reprehend them.’ 1

‘ Such is the history, now for the first time published, of this remarkable incident, related in the words of those who were personally cognisant of the facts, and,’ remarks Father Knox with amazing simplicity, ‘ what it comes to is this.’ The Duke of Guise and the Duke of Mayenne

1 A portion of this letter of Parsons*, with an English translation, was printed by Tierney, vol. iii. p. lix. - OF CARDINAL ALLEN 201

agree to secure the payment of a large sum of money to a person who engages to kill Queen Elizabeth. An archbishop, a papal nuncio himself a bishop, a cardinal, the Spanish agent, King Philip, ‘ and perhaps the pope himself, when they were made aware of the project, did not express the slightest disapprobation of it, but spoke of the manifest advantage it would be to religion if in some way or other the wicked woman was removed by death.’ There is little indeed to surprise us in the facts here revealed. They serve to verify and to give date and name to one of the many rumours which were carried to the Court of Elizabeth, of attempts against her life, planned or approved by the clerical leaders of the Catholic party, and so far go to justify her worst suspicions. They give colour to accusations brought against Pius v. in the affair of Ridolfi, and lend credibility to the strange reports of Parry and others of the approbation given in secret by English ecclesiastical authorities to similar schemes. But it was an age of assassination, and we might be inclined to set down the criminal project to the fanaticism and religious animosity which for the moment blinded the eyes of the conspirators to their own higher moral teaching. The surprise of the readers of the Letters and Memorials will be excited not by the facts, but by the defence put into the mouths of these men by Father Knox. The words of the nuncio and the tone of Tassis may be taken to imply that the contemplated action was not altogether meritorious. But Father Knox will scarcely allow as much as this. * They were so clear in conscience about it that their words indicate no doubtfulness.’ How then did they justify themselves? he asks. The question is indeed a grave one, and the answer given to it is all the more instructive as it comes from a divine learned in the theology and casuistry of the schools, and who is not likely to modify his representation of the orthodox Catholic opinion of the sixteenth century under the influence of any more recent modes of thought. Father Knox proceeds to put a possible case, which to his mind contains the solution of the difficulty. A chief of banditti seizes an unoffend­ ing traveller in a country where the executive is power- 202 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS less, and demands an impossible ransom. Who can doubt such a captive might lawfully kill the robber to effect his escape? If he could do it himself, any one, much more a friend or kinsman, could do it for him, or he might hire another to do it. The death of the robber would not be murder but self-defence on the part of the innocent captive. ‘ The parallel is complete between the bandit chief and Elizabeth . . . why then was it a sin to kill Elizabeth, and, doing so, to save from a lifelong prison and impending death her helpless victim the Queen of Scots ? ’ ‘ Such,’ he adds, ‘ may have been the reason­ ing of the Duke of Guise and his approvers, and on such grounds they may have maintained, not without plausi­ bility, the lawfulness of an act which, under other circum­ stances, would merit the deepest reprobation.’ Such very probably was the reasoning of bishops, cardinals, and pope in their war against Elizabeth, and it was thus that the queen herself understood it. She was right, then, after all in believing that her life was perpetually in danger from the secret assassin, as long, at least, as Mary was her prisoner, and this as the result of a doctrine according to which, in the words of their apologist, men occupying the highest positions in Church and State, zealous for God’s glory, irreproachable in their morals, and accustomed to act with deliberation, could shape their conduct without scruple. W e will not waste words in the execration of this detestable doctrine. The bare fact, distinctly proved and admitted, that a group of eminent Catholic Churchmen could deliberately plan, and be ready to pay for, and take advantage of, a foul murder, in order to get rid of an enemy of their faith, sufficiently points its own moral. But when a grave theologian assures us that the deed of violence was not to be taken as an instance of exceptional crime, but that it was a project which might have been carried out with a good conscience by men whose conduct should be a pattern to their fellows, he could hardly go further towards palliating the pitiless action of Elizabeth in regard to her Catholic subjects. Nor can we be surprised at the deeply-rooted belief of Protestant England that the papal bulls were a fertile source of corruption of OF CARDINAL ALLEN 203 morals, of falsehood, treachery, and even murder, in all who made themselves parties to their execution. Meanwhile James’s recovery of his freedom, and the earnest solicitations of Mary, had given a fresh impulse to the Duke of Guise’s desire for the invasion of Eng­ land. The nuncio reported to the papal Secretary of State the details of a new plan. There were now to be two expeditions, one from Spain under a commander to be chosen by the pope, and the other from France, directed by the Duke of Guise or his brother. Every effort was made to overcome the procrastination of Philip. Allen also urged upon the pope that never again would such an opportunity occur. Father Parsons was sent to Gregory xm. with written instructions from the Duke of Guise. His Holiness was entreated to increase his donation towards the enterprise, and to ex­ pedite a bull renewing the excommunication against all who should aid Elizabeth or thwart the design. The port where the Spanish forces were to land was fixed upon, and the English noblemen named who could raise at least 20,000 men in a few days. Allen, as before, was to be entrusted with the duty of publishing the bulls. Father Parsons, however, returned without any promise of further subsidies, but the briefs appointing Allen Bishop of Durham and apostolic delegate duly arrived, and shortly afterwards the Queen of Scots wrote to him from Sheffield to express her joy that he was destined to be one day the interpreter to her of his Holiness’ commands. The arrest of Throckmorton, who had a general knowledge of the enterprise, and was in the confidence of the Queen of Scots, once more threw the plans into confusion. Allen and Parsons, in great alarm, drew up a report for the pope (Jan. 16, 1584), a copy of which they forwarded to Philip, "fhey cast themselves at his Majesty’s feet, and entreat him for the love of Jesus Christ not to abandon so many afflicted souls. ‘ In truth (they say), it may be called a miracle of God, that an affair which has been matter of com­ munication among so many friends for the space of now two years, has not been entirely discovered long ago. Every day’s delay brings them hurt and danger.’ A 204 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS memorandum was also drawn up a little later by Allen for the pope, on the question, much debated between the party of the Guises and that of Philip, whether the invading army should land in Scotland or in England. Allen, who was strongly in favour of the direct attack upon England, adds, 4 If it be not carried out this year, I give up all hope in man, and the rest of my life will be bitter to me.’ It should be noted that it was in this year 1584 that Allen printed at Ingolstadt his famous answer to Cecil, in which he protested :— ‘ W e never procured our queen’s excommunication; we have sought the mitigation thereof; we have done our allegiance not­ withstanding ; we have answered when we were forced into it with such humility and respect to her Majesty and counsel as you see; no man can charge us o f any attempt against the realm or the prince's person.’ 1 Twelve months later, February 1585, Allen has to announce to the Queen of Scots a very important change which had taken place in their affairs. By the death of the Duke of Anjou, in June 1584, the Protestant Henry of Navarre became heir to the throne of France, and the interests of the Duke of Guise became, in con­ sequence, wholly absorbed in the internal politics of his own country. Allen informs Mary that Philip had now taken into his own hands the conquest of England, the execution of which was committed to the Duke of Parma, and that the negotiations with Parma were to be conducted by no others but Father Parsons, Mr. Hew Owen, and Allen himself. The death of Gregory, and the succession of the impetuous Sixtus v. in the April following, also contributed to give an entirely new complexion to the design. The Armada was within measurable distance. Allen and Parsons were shortly summoned to Rome by the new pope, and from this time forward Olivares, the Spanish ambassador at the Papal Court, takes a prominent part in the correspon­ dence. Many of the papers of this astute diplomatist are here printed for the first time, and are historically both curious and important. They reveal the gradual 1 Sincere and Modest Defence, p. 70. The italics are ours. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 205 development of the purely selfish policy of Philip, his fear of being outwitted by Sixtus, the wrangling between king and pope about the payment of costs, and the mode in which the ambassador contrived to make tools of the two English priests. The ultimate object to which all Philip’s diplomacy now proceeded was to secure the English throne for himself or one of his family. Allen and Parsons were needed to disarm the suspicions of the pope, who would be naturally averse to throwing a large increase of power into the hands of the King of Spain, and to advise upon the best grounds upon which to base Philip’s claims. The first step was to procure the promotion of Allen to the cardinalate—a suggestion which emanated from Parsons—and to obtain for him from the king a hand­ some allowance, for, wrote Olivares, ‘ I think it very important to lay under an obligation this man who is the one that will have to lead the whole dance.’ To the pope he urged, especially when the Queen of Scots was doomed, the need there was of giving English Catholics a leader in her place, and ‘ to raise to high dignity against the Queen of England from among her own people, a declared and principal enemy of hers.’ The pope, however, wished to put this off until the enterprise was quite ready. Under date of February 24, 1586, we find a memo­ randum, one of the most curious documents in the volume, forwarded by Olivares to Philip, containing in parallel columns the Spanish proposals and the pope’s replies on each point, with the comments of the ambas­ sador. The first two sections declare the confidence with which the king, relying upon the vigour of the pope, embarks upon the enterprise, and lays down that its object is to bring back England to the obedience of the Roman Church, and to put in possession of tne throne the Queen of Scots. For this his Holiness gives infinite thanks to God. The third section runs as follows :— ‘ His Holiness thinks that 4 After the death of the queen this is a matter for grave con- (of Scots) his Majesty says that it sideration, and that it is very would be to plunge into greater proper not to trust the religion difficulties and harder to over­ 206 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS of that kingdom to the King of come if the King of Scotland, Scotland, for the reasons given her son, should succeed, he being by his M ajesty; and with regard a confirmed heretic, and any con­ to the person who shall be pro­ version of his being open to per to succeed the queen, his doubt, and a relapse easy, besides Holiness will conform himself having sucked in that poison to what shall seem good to his from infancy through being Majesty, and do whatever may forced to live among suspicious be necessary for that purpose.’ persons, as were those who brought him u p : whereas, in order to establish firmly the Catholic religion in that king­ dom, there is need of a person thoroughly rooted in it. Hence it appears to his Majesty that it is fitting at once to think about and look out for a proper person, as well as to consider whatever else bears upon this point; in order that the Queen o f Scotland may not, under the de- ceptive influence o f maternal love, be able to think that it will be good to introduce him into the succession and put him in possession o f the kingdom.’

‘ W ith regard to this,’ remarks Olivares, ‘ his Holiness was at first minded to convert the king, but in my answers I showed him such great inconveniences in this course that he inclined to the plan of looking out for some Catholic who might be suitable, and marry­ ing him to the queen, and that he should be made prince, whereby it would be provided that he would succeed, if she were to die without children. To this I answered by pointing out the danger to which the queen’s life would be exposed through the desire which he who married her might have to succeed her on the throne: also the difficulty of finding any Englishman fitting. . . . The result was that though the pope tried to lessen these inconveniences and to show the suitableness of a native prince, he nevertheless became confused, and got out of the difficulty by saying that there was time to settle th is: and in his reply I bound him down (as your Majesty will see) to follow herein whatever may seem good to your Majesty, and after having read it and had it in his power, he said nothing against it.’ Olivares adds, the pope is ‘ far from imagining that your Majesty has any intention on behalf of any one of your own, and therefore he will be greatly amazed when it OF CARDINAL ALLEN 207 is touched upon with him; and, however much he may be pledged to agree to what your Majesty thinks fit, I think he will not fail to raise some difficulty. ’ The fourth point concerns the contributions required of the pope. Sixtus offers to give 200,000 crowns as soon as the expedition sets sail; he will give 100,000 when the troops disembark, 100,000 at the end of six months, and 100,000 at the end of six months more; and if the war should continue 200,000 a year as long as it should last. Ultimately he was induced to promise a still larger subsidy. The fifth and last point of this important paper pledges the pope to prevent the inter­ ference which was to be expected from the jealousy of France. The year 1586 passed without any further action being taken in the matter. Olivares was intent upon keeping up the spirits of Allen, and Philip presented him with an abbey in Naples. Meanwhile the execution of Mary, February 8, 1587, brought the question of Philip’s claim to the throne more prominently to the front. Allen, however, saw the danger of putting it forward too openly. He advised that nothing at present should be said of the matter to the pope. He assures the king that there are few lovers of piety in England who do not long to be under his sceptre. But it would be useless and un­ safe to begin the war on this ground. Whatever is acquired in a just war is lawfully possessed; ‘ and there­ fore,’ he continues— ‘ When God has given the victory to your Majesty’s arms, your Majesty’s relationship to the royal house of Lancaster may be justly and reasonably pleaded in the assembly of the estates called the Parliament, where the matter can be most easily managed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the born legate of the Apostolic See, to whom belongs of right the first vote of the whole realm, and whose lead will be followed by all the bishops and Catholic rubles, who alone, in consequence of the previous death or dismissal of the heretics, will have votes in that assembly. To the furtherance of which, if I am stil^ living, I will do my utmost endeavour.’

Olivares’ fears of the pope’s opposition to the Spanish claim are amusingly illustrated by the way in which he describes a rumour which reached him of a design on 208 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS the part of Sixtus threatening to upset the whole plan. • He writes to the king, that the pope is taking great pains, through the medium of the King of France, ‘ to induce the Queen of England to become a convert to the Catholic religion, making her large offers.’ This, urges Olivares, is an additional reason for being silent upon the question of the succession until the army is actually in England, and also not to delay the enterprise until the pope can ‘ manage to satisfy himself with a feigned conversion of the queen, and so keep the million.’ The ambassador then forwarded to Madrid a memorandum, the joint production of Allen and Parsons, in which the king’s title to the English crown is elabor­ ately traced from John of Gaunt. It is here set out that all claimants by the House of York are unfit through heresy or other defects. Outside the kingdom there is no one known to claim the succession by the House of Lancaster, except the King of Spain, and even if there were, no one else could hope to expel the usurper or to be acceptable to Catholics. Moreover, the Queen of Scotland by her will appointed Philip her heir and suc­ cessor. As to the war, vengeance for the blood of Mary and compensation for injuries constitute just grounds, not to speak of the cause of religion. The decree of the Lateran Council, in 1215,1 gives to Catholic princes all lands they can take from heretics, and the conquest will be finally confirmed by the voluntary election on the part of the commonwealth of Catholics. Allen received the long-expected hat on August 7, 1587, but it was not till the July of the following year that the Armada was fairly under way. Before the sailing of the fleet, the new cardinal, in confident antici­ pation of its success, drew up with Olivares a paper of suggestions for filling up the various offices of Church

1 It is upon this decree, which he calls f the common law of mediaeval Christendom,’ that Father Knox chiefly rests his own defence o f the pontifical action against Elizabeth. He gravely assures us that this law ‘ had not been abrogated by desuetude’ in 1570-88, because e Allen and Parsons appeal to it,’ and ‘ Pius v. acted in accordance with it.’ Philopater, i.e. Parsons, in his Responsio ad Elizabethce Edictum/ 1593, p. 149, went so far as to insist that it was an article of faith (est certum et de fide) that a prince falling from the faith was ipso facto deprived of all power and dignity, ex ipsa vi juris, tarn humani quam divini, hocque ante omnem sententiam supremi Pastoris OF CARDINAL ALLEN 209 and State in the conquered country. The cardinal him­ self was to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and in order to make it possible to hold a Parliament, he must have faculties for filling up the other sees. He engages not to act in this against the wishes of the Prince of Parma. Thomas Metham, a missionary priest, then in prison, is proposed for the Archbishopric of York. It would be dangerous to leave Owen Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, behind in Italy, free to form new intrigues after his wont, therefore he should have some see in Wales. Griffith Roberts, another troublesome Welshman, should be similarly treated. As to the office of High Chancellor, until some fit person is found, the cardinal seems inclined to hold it himself. Such is a rough outline of the story of the ‘ Sacred Expedition/ as it is told by the Letters and Memorials* In revealing the secret diplomacy of Allen and his associates during the seven years which elapsed after the flight of Parsons from England in 1581, they form a most instructive commentary upon the turn demum of the mitigation of the bull which Allen and Campion had boasted of having procured. It was not Allen’s fault, at least, that the sword suspended over Elizabeth’s head had not fallen sooner. Now that the hour for the ‘ stout assailing’ of England had come in earnest, the mask must be thrown aside, and the pontifical anathema be once more pronounced against all peaceful and law- abiding Catholics. Sixtus, in the bull proclaiming the Armada, after, as usual, denouncing Elizabeth as ‘ a bastard conceived and born by incestuous adultery and therefore uncapable of the kingdom,’ and enumerating her several crimes, among which the pope was not ashamed to specify her ‘ stirring up to sedition and re­ bellion ’ the subjects of other princes, solemnly renews the sentence of his predecessors, Pius v. and Gregory x i i i ., and further, ‘ doth straitly command, under the indigna­ tion of Almighty God and pain of excommunication, and the corporal punishment appointed by the laws, that none of whatsoever estate or condition presume to yield unto her obedience, favour, or other succours, but that they and every of them concur by all means possible to 210 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS her chastisement.’ All the inhabitants of the country are to forthwith unite themselves to the Catholic army conducted by the Duke of Parma, and a large reward is offered to any person, public or private, who shall arrest, put in hold, and deliver up to the Catholic party, the said usurper or any of her accomplices. Finally, the Holy Father, of his benignity and favour to this enter­ prise, granteth most liberally a plenary indulgence to all who shall help in any wise to the deposition and punishment of the above-named persons.1 The bull was accompanied by the famous ‘ Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, by the Cardinal of England.’ 2 The violent language of this document, signed and adopted, though perhaps not composed, by Allen, far exceeds that of Sixtus. Its coarse invective, its adoption of every calumny invented against the private life of the queen, its appeal to every motive of religious hate and superstitious fear which might influence the heart of the oppressed Catholic, painfully manifest the spirit which animated throughout the ecclesiastical leaders of the party. The Catholics who might be dis­ posed to take up arms for their queen and country are warned in this authoritative document that they will be fighting against God and His anointed, against their next lawful king, against truth, faith, religion, and conscience. They will be defending, to their own present destruction and eternal shame, ‘ an infamous, deprived, accursed, and excommunicate heretic, the very shame of her sex and princely name, the chief spectacle of sin and abomination in this our age.’ ‘ Fight not,’ cries Allen, ‘ for God’s love, fight not in that quarrel in which, if you die, you are sure to be damned.’ With the collapse of the Armada, the Letters and Memorials lose their chief interest. It is some comfort, however, to find that Philip in vain attempted to get the million or even the 500,000 ducats promised by the pope. Sixtus stuck to the letter of his bond, and professed his readiness to pay when the conditions were fulfilled, and not before. The enterprise was not, however, abandoned. 1 The printed broadside is given by Tierney, vol. iii. p. xliv. * Reprinted, London, 1842. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 211

Strange to say, there were even priests in England who, in the midst of the disasters to Philip’s fleet, could still find room for encouragement. Allen had sent Fathers Gerard and Oldcorne into the country when the Armada was nearing the coast, ‘ on various matters connected with Catholic interests.’ One of the two Jesuits reported to the cardinal, in a letter which was shown to Olivares, that ‘ he had obtained through the sailing of the Armada a knowledge , of things which could not otherwise have been had, and that means have been found for the enter­ prise to a great extent easy and safe.’ But we have no space to pursue the course of the papal diplomacy further. The cardinal lived another six years. He died at Rome, October 16, 1594. There are signs in his last years of a somewhat altered tone. In 1593 we find him prepared to negotiate with the pope for peace between England and Spain. He had begun also, it seems, to mistrust the methods and aims of the allies whom he had called into the missionary field. The difference which sprang up between the cardinal and the Jesuits may not have been directly connected with polities. He is reported to have blamed them for seeking the interests of the Society, rather than the peace of the seminarists or the good of the Church. Charles Paget also tells Parsons at a later time that had Allen lived ‘ he would have curbed him shorter for meddling in matters of State.’ But whatever may have been the cause of this domestic quarrel, the comment upon it by Allen’s former friend and constant correspondent, Father Agazzari, the rector of the English college at Rome, is too characteristic to be passed over:— * Certainly, my father,’ he writes to Parsons, ‘ it seems to me a great indication of the Divine majesty, and a great and visible sign of God’s love towards the company, this college and the cause of England, that when human means fail He almost miraci&ously in­ terposes His Divine hand. So long as Allen walked aright in this matter, in union with and fidelity to the company as he used to do, God preserved, prospered, and exalted him ; but when he began to leave this path, in a moment the thread of his plans and life were cut short together.’ 1

1 Douay Diaries, Introd. p. xcviii. 212 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS

It has been the editor’s object in the two volumes of Records to dissever, as much as possible, the scholastic life of Allen from his political career. Father Knox maintains that in fact the cardinal’s political action had no connection with his work as founder and superior, of the Douai seminary. He lays stress upon an assertion of Allen himself, that questions treated in the ordinary courses of theology concerning papal power and the rights of princes were at the college purposely passed over in silence, with the view of preserving the political innocence of the scholars. W e may certainly reject as incredible the tales of Cecil’s spies that assassination was insinuated from the college pulpits, or that treasonable plots were openly discussed within its walls. The leaders in these matters were not such poor conspirators. But it is vain to pretend that the seminarists were not well grounded in the principles of the bull. They imbibed the doctrines in question with the very air they breathed. Every word which fell from Allen was revered as an oracle. Were they forbidden, too, to read the * Motives ’ of their own professor, Bristow, or the works of the arch­ traitor Sanders, advocating distinctly and forcibly the doctrine that Elizabeth was not their lawful queen, and that it was their duty to resist her? Were the mission­ aries ignorant of the formal answers, expressly obtained by Allen for their enlightenment, from Maldonatus and Emmanuel Sa, learned theologians of European reputa­ tion, to the Six Questions of Cecil? The theology of the matter is by them at least put in a nutshell.1 Both declare that, if there were any attempt to put the bull into execution, no Catholic could with a safe conscience do otherwise than take sides against the queen, and Father Sa adds that he should consider it an obligation to persuade others to act likewise. The literary works of Allen himself, moreover, form the connecting link between the two lives which he led, and exhibit the gradual development of his political creed. In the ‘ Apology for the Seminaries’ in 1581, intended to smooth the way for the Jesuit mission, he makes no difficulty of referring to Elizabeth as his sove- 1 Printed in Tierney’s Dodd, vol. iii. Appendix, p. xvii. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 213

reign with loyalty and respect. His ‘ Sincere and Modest Defence/ written three years later, is an elaborate argu­ ment in support of the deposing power which he, while in the thick of treasonable designs, yet affects to treat as a matter of mere divinity. Parry, who was on his own confession executed for attempting the queen’s life, declared that it was Allen’s writing which taught him ‘ that kings may be excommunicated, deprived, and violently handled.’ The book was considered to be treasonable, and Alfield, a missionary priest employed by Allen to circulate it, was hanged for his pains. But especially noteworthy is the disgraceful letter written by him shortly before his promotion to the purple in defence of Sir William Stanley’s betrayal of Deventer. Stanley, a Catholic, had occupied the town with 1200 men, mostly Irishmen, then fighting under Elizabeths commission for the independence of the Netherlands against Spain. Seizing his opportunity, he made over the fortress to the Spanish general. Allen was overjoyed at the treachery. Priests were sent from the seminary to give religious eonsolation to Stanley’s troops; and to make public their good example, Allen printed the letter in question. He told them their action was ‘ lawful, honourable, and necessary/ that all English Catholics holding towns from Philip were bound under pain of damnation to do the like. He maintained that all acts of the queen were ‘ void of the law of God and man, that no war waged by her could be lawful or just/ and (here conveniently forgetting the 4 mitigation ’) that her subjects were for­ bidden to obey or serve her in any way. The pope alone, he declares, ‘ may best instruct and warrant a Christian soldier how far, when and where, either at home or abroad, in civil or foreign wars, made against the enemies or rebels of God’s Church, he may and must break with his temporal sovereign.’ 1 Such were the opinions of Allen, printed and pub­ lished by him as the recognised superior of the Catholic mission, and which Elizabeth was invited to treat as matters of mere divinity. Is it surprising that she refused to allow the disciples of such a master to propagate 1 Defence o f Stanley, Chetham Society, p. 27. 214 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS without hindrance these incendiary doctrines in her kingdom ? The rank and file of the clergy were doubt­ less kept in ignorance of the intrigues going on around them. They were commissioned to make converts and to teach theology—the theology of the bulls. The less, however, that they meddled with the conspiracies of their chiefs, the better for the purpose they all had in view. They were for the most part simple, religious- minded, and brave men, ready to give their lives for their cause. But the State had reason to regard them as only the dangerous instruments of a powerful and secret organisation directed to revolutionary ends. How completely that organisation could in fact be brought under the control of a single individual, and of the worst traitor that ever escaped the hangman, is evident in the case of Father Parsons. Upon that notorious conspirator devolved, on Allen’s death, the practical leadership of the Catholic party. He had founded several English seminaries in the dominions of the Spanish king, viz. at Valladolid, St. Lucar, Seville, and Lisbon. With the aid of the Duke of Guise he also founded a college at St. Omer. As a devoted friend, and in great measure the paymaster, of Philip, he knew well how to use the power of the purse over the refugee clergy and laity. He became superior of the English college at Rome. Dr. Worthington, president of the Douai college in 1589, was induced to make a secret vow of obedience to him. He finally prevailed upon the pope to make the extra­ ordinary appointment of an arch-priest, a creature of his own, in lieu of a bishop, to superintend the mission in England, with secret instructions to consult the Superior of the Jesuits on all points of importance. It is admitted by Father Knox that by thus subjecting all the secular priests in England to a single priest attached to his own party, Parsons aimed at bringing the influence of the whole Catholic body to subserve his own political designs.1 The presumption, then, that the foreign seminaries were 4 seed-plots of treason ’ was certainly no mere pre­ tence on the part of the English Government, nor was 1 Douay Diaries, p. Ixvi. OF CARDINAL ALLEN 215 it the unreasonable result of Protestant prejudice and panic. It was the deliberate conviction formed by Catholic statesmen of experience and credit, who, not being parties to the quarrel, were able to judge of the situation with impartiality. Cardinal d’Ossat, ambassador of France at the Court of Rome, does not hesitate to ascribe the institution of the seminaries to motives of State policy. Their object (he writes to Henri iv. in 1601) was to instil into the minds of the missionaries the Spanish political creed, and for that rather than for the Catholic faith they were, if necessary, to suffer martyr­ dom.1 Father Knox speaks slightingly of this important judgment, on the ground that the cardinal falls into some errors on matters of detail in describing the colleges in question, and that he wrote rather as a diplomatist than a Churchman. But the question in dispute is essentially one of statesmanship, and the appeal is here made to the judgment of European statesmen not likely at least to be biassed by any prejudices against Catholicism. Moreover, Cardinal d’Ossat was not only a man of rare penetration but of a religious disposition, and by no means unfavourably inclined towards the Society of Jesus. The candid and impartial De Thou, an historian whose political employments and high position gave him unusual opportunities of arriving at the truth concerning the events of his own time, passes a similar judgment. e Not content,’ he remarks,‘ with exercising in secret their spiritual ministry, the priests who now (1580) poured into England, seemed to have come to prepare men’s minds for rebellion. They disputed publicly of the succession to the crown, of the obedience due to magistrates, and, to judge by their conduct, it would appear that these seminaries were only established in order to make way for the execution of the horrible decree of Pius v., and consequently to nourish traitors and assassins.’ 2 If this was the view of Allen’s work and its tendency formed by such men as D ’Ossat and De Thou, it is not surprising that English statesmen— seeing the peace of their country at the mercy of the pope, who was placing all his forces, spiritual and temporal, his money, his 1 Lettres (Nov. 26), Paris, 1827, p. 676. 2 Histoire Univ. vol. viii. p. 306. 216 LETTERS OF CARDINAL ALLEN soldiers, and his missionaries, at the service of any foreign invader, or even any Catholic insurgents within the realm— should have attacked the primary source of the mischief within their reach, by waging a war of ex­ termination against his clerical army. The penal legis­ lature, with its train of horrors, the hunting of priests, the tortures, and the barbarities of the scaffold, not to speak of the spirit of intolerance and injustice eventually engendered by them, and which endured for more than two centuries, were the natural but deplorable effects of the conflict so rashly challenged by Pius v. The ulti­ mate results of the bull of deposition to the cause of Catholicism in this country were, however, so fatal that a few generations later Pope Urban vm. might well ex­ claim with sincerity, ‘ W e yet bewail it with tears of blood.’ The respect due to men, however deluded, who have shed their blood for what they believed to be their duty, cannot be denied to a large majority of those who are enrolled in the Catholic martyrologies. It must, nevertheless, be admitted that it was not on account of their religious profession as such, nor for any article of their creed, that they forfeited their lives. Sir John Throckmorton considered that Campion and his fellows suffered not for the faith but for the deposing power. Mr. Simpson insists that they died rather for the liberty of conscience to hold itself in suspense. They were urged, he says, to declare the deposing power to be a wicked imposition, and they died rather than do so. Even if this position were capable of being fairly main­ tained in the face of their own declarations upon trial and the circumstances of the case, it is at least manifest that the acts of the Legislature under which they suffered were aimed not at their theological beliefs, but at their treasonable attitude towards the State at a moment of its extreme peril. ENGLISH JESUITS AND SCOTTISH INTRIGUES, 1581-821

A L EA RN ED Jesuit writer at the end of the eighteenth century found it possible to make the following sweeping assertion : ‘ I who have searched for the guilt [i.e. treason] of the first seminarists, through volumes of manuscript records and letters written by them, have not yet dis­ covered a trace, a symptom, of any plot or contrivance to overthrow Elizabeth, in which the founders of the Seminaries, or any of their friends or dependants, had the smallest concern.’ 2 It is a far cry from such a position as this to that of the late Dr. Knox of the London Oratory, who in 1882 candidly exposed the fact and defended the principle of a series of such plots and contrivances in which the two founders of seminaries, Cardinal Allen and Father Parsons, took a principal part. It is a great gain in the interests of historical research when a question of this sort is finally removed from the sphere of religious or party controversy. Yet it is quite certain that when in the midsummer of 1580 the Jesuits Parsons and Campion entered England as auxiliaries of the secular priests, they came as mission­ aries pure and simple, with the strictest injunction from their superiors to confine themselves to their spiritual duties and in no way to intermeddle with politics. They were forbidden even to write to Rome news concerning State affairs. A Jesuit is nothing if not obedient to orders. The first public act of the new missionaries, after their landing in England, was to call a meeting of the leading clergy, before whom they exhibited these instruc­ tions, and made solemn oath that their coming was purely apostolical, ‘ to attend to the gaining of souls without any pretence or knowledge of matters of State.’ In his 1 Edinburgh Review, April 1898. 2 Plowden’s Remarks on the Memoirs o f Panzani (1794), p. 147. 218 ENGLISH JESUITS AND

Challenge, addressed to the Lords of the Council, Campion, speaking for his colleague as well as for himself, declared with evident sincerity, ‘ I never had mind, and am straitly forbid by our fathers that sent me, to deal in any respects with matters of State or policy of this realm, as those things which appertain not to my vocation and from which I do gladly estrange and sequester my thoughts.’ How came it, then, that within two years from this time the Fathers Parsons and Holt, with Dr. Allen, the head of the seminary at Rheims, Father Creighton, a Scottish Jesuit, and other ecclesiastics, became the very soul of a political and military enterprise which had for its object the invasion of England and the dethronement of Elizabeth? Did this violent change of tactics proceed from fresh orders— secret orders, revoking the previous more public instructions, from Rome ?—or were even the Jesuits seduced from the path of obedience by the wiles of the Spanish ambassador or the fascinations of Mary Stuart? In any case, it is a point of some historical interest to trace the steps and to identify the agents by which the purely missionary efforts of 1580 became gradually merged in the great international enterprise for the destruction of Elizabeth, an enterprise which was for some six years conducted mainly by Parsons and Allen. The question does not appear to have been adequately treated. Father Gerard, incidentally touching upon the subject in a recent article in the Month, 1 places it in a somewhat new aspect. He admits, indeed, that ‘ Persons and one or two of his brethren, residing abroad,2 engaged to a very considerable extent in political agitation with the object of securing, on the demise of Elizabeth, a Catholic successor, or one who would at least grant toleration to Catholics,’ but he affirms that there is no evidence what­ ever that ‘ the Jesuits in England took part in such political action,’ or ‘ that Persons himself ever attempted to use them for such a purpose, to say nothing of the secular clergy.’

1 Archpriest Controversy, Jan. 1896, p. 44. 2 The italics are throughout our own. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 219

Passing by the odd expression * political agitation ’ and the reference to ‘ the demise of Elizabeth ’— euphemisms which appear to indicate a lingering reluctance to face plain facts— the rather fine distinction between plotting within and plotting without the kingdom may serve an apologetic purpose by suggesting that Parsons and his Jesuit brethren cannot be fairly charged with a breach of their instructions and pledges, inasmuch as they never dealt with politics so long as they acted as missionaries on English soil. But whatever may be its casuistical worth, the statement challenges inquiry as a question of fact. It must be remembered, to begin with, that when Tassis, the Spanish agent in Paris, in the spring of 1582 asked Parsons for proof of his confident assertion that the English Catholics were eager that arms should be taken up in Scotland for the deliverance of Mary Stuart, and that they would hasten to the camp when formed, the Jesuit answered that ‘ he knew all this from what many of them had declared when treating of their consciences, that these things had gone so far that there could be no doubt about it, and that most certainly England was very well disposed for the movement.’ W e are therefore driven to the conclusion that Parsons, during the four­ teen months of his missionary career in England, not only made himself master of the military situation, and of the secrets of malcontent nobles, but that, armed with this information, he slipped abroad to France and Spain, there to fan the flames of conspiracy and to carry into effect treasonable designs conceived by his former friends and penitents. The line to be drawn here, between treason inside and treason outside the mission, is very slender indeed. But this is not all. Father Gerard’s contention that Parsons never made political use of other priests on the mission cannot be made good. In the course of this inquiry it will be seen that during the period of his temporary retirement at Rouen, while still attached to the English Mission and interfering in its affairs* with the purpose of shortly returning to it, Parsons was in constant communication with the Spanish Ambassador in London, and that, in co-operation with the Ambassador, he dispatched missionaries— at least 220 ENGLISH JESUITS AND both a secular priest and a Jesuit— from England into Scotland, upon an embassy which, as the event showed, had a distinctly political and treasonable character. These zealous missionaries, bent on saving the soul of the Scottish King, slowly but surely became first politicians and then conspirators, without indeed ceasing to be missionaries. Unfortunately Mr. Froude’s chapter on ‘ The Jesuits in Scotland ’ contains scarcely a paragraph on the subject free from some mistake; and there are doubtful identi­ fications in the careful works of M. Teulet, Mr. Simpson, and Dr. Knox. The recent publication of the Simancas Papers for 1580-86, under the admirable editorship of Major Martin Hume, enables us, however, to follow more exactly the sequence of events and the movements of individuals, and so to make clear some matters which have hitherto been imperfectly represented. A few months before the landing of the Jesuits, Juan de Vargas wrote that such was the condition of England ‘ with signs of revolt everywhere,’ that he verily believed ‘ that if so much as a cat moved the whole affair would crumble down in three days.’ ( They know it,’ he said, ‘ and hence their fear.’ But to all the sources of dis­ quietude to Elizabeth indicated by the Spanish agent there was now to be added the change taking place in Scotland. The power of Morton and the Protestant party was waning. The influence of D ’Aubigny was on the increase. Mary Stuart was lifting up her head again, and she was the one centre round which the isolated Catholic forces could rally. The English Catholics had been losing heart. They were looking for help at this moment rather to France than to Spain. They took but a languid interest in the pope’s expedition into Ireland in aid of the insurgents, and thought that Dr. Sanders, whom they wanted as an English cardinal, was thrown away on such a venture. They needed above all things strong leaders. Nothing seemed more likely to make the cat jump than the eloquence and zeal of these two Jesuits; and Elizabeth was well aware of her danger. She did not trust their apostolical professions. The priests were hunted down like beasts, and the prisons were filled SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 221 with recusants. It must have been soon clear to the astute Parsons, as it became clear to his friend Sir Francis Englefield, that ‘ the seminaries, powerful as they are to prepare men’s minds for a change, must fail to complete the object without the aid of temporal force.’ Yet Parsons still confined himself ostensibly to his spiritual functions. About three months after his arrival in England it appears that Mary Stuart had intimated a desire to have a priest sent into Scotland to convert her son—a very proper office for a Jesuit to undertake. Parsons thought, or at a later time believed that he had then thought, of Father William Holt as a suitable person for this purpose. In any case, he now wrote to the General for fresh hands for the English mission, and named Holt and Jasper Hey wood. They were sent, but not until the following year. Meanwhile the masterful Jesuit was assuming a certain leadership over the secular clergy. In an important letter written to his General, Aquaviva (twelve months later, September 1581), Parsons gives an account of his first projects.1 Surveying the whole ground of the mission, he had, so he says, fixed his mind upon three districts into which as yet priests had hardly penetrated—viz. Wales, Cambridgeshire, and the counties bordering on Scotland. Into Wales (he writes) * I sent some priests ’ with satisfactory results. Cam­ bridgeshire had been infected by the University, which was entirely heretical. Many remedies had been in vain attempted. ‘ A t last,’ writes Parsons, ‘ by the help of God I insinuated into the University itself a certain priest in the guise of a gentleman scholar,2 with such happy success that in a few months seven youths of good promise were won over, and are presently to be sent to Rheims. The third district, which is the largest, con­ tains four or five counties on the borders of England and Scotland into which scarcely any priests have entered. To this quarter, therefore, I have directed several work­ men, but one especially, who seemed to excel others in prudence, charity, and knowledge.’ This last priest, of 1 More, pp. 113-21. 2 f Tandem, Deo juvante, insinuavi sacerdotem quendam ipsi universitati, sub nomine scholaris aut nobilis studiosi.’ Here we have a good example of what is popularly meant by a f Jesuit in disguise.* 222 ENGLISH JESUITS AND

whom we shall hear more presently, Parsons elsewhere calls William Waytes (more properly Watts). He was by birth a native of the diocese of St. David’s, and was first sent from the seminary of Rheims into England in August 1578. In November 1580, before he had been six months in the country, Parsons, driven from cover to cover by the hot pursuit of the priest-hunters, took refuge in the house of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador. The am­ bassador, says Mr. Simpson, took the Jesuit under his special protection, and would walk with him as one of his own men, while the Queen’s officers were watching his house. ‘ By him Persons suffered himself to be alto­ gether detached from the French interest . . . and now completely “ espaniolated.” * According to the same authority, Mendoza, probably in this winter, communi­ cated to Parsons the plan which had been settled at Rome by the Pope, the General of the Jesuits, the Knights of Malta, and the King of Spain for the invasion of England through Scotland, after the conquest of Ireland. The correspondence between Aquaviva and Archbishop Beaton in October-November 1580 in reference to this ‘ Sacred Expedition ’ is printed by Labanoff.1 But Mr. Simpson omits to give his authority for the supposition that Parsons was taken into the ambassador’s confidence regarding the scheme, or even—extremely probable though it be— that the Jesuit was at this time converted to the Spanish policy. In any case, for the next six months Parsons was busy with his magical printing-press and numberless sacerdotal activities without betraying any evidence of political practices beyond what is involved in his aforesaid ‘ treating with consciences.’ It is, however, just after this close communication and intimacy of Parsons with Mendoza in the winter of 1580-81 that we find in the ambassador’s dispatches the first references to political intercourse with English Catholics. Hitherto he had had a great deal to say of Irish affairs, the successes of the insurgents, and the exploits of Sanders, but he had not directly meddled with these, as he had no instructions from Philip to do 1 Vol. vii. pp. 152-61. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 223 so. On the last day of the year Morton was arrested, and on January 15, 1581, Mendoza wrote: ‘ I have approached certain English Catholics by way of con­ versation to urge them to insist upon the punishment of Morton, as this is my most convenient way. I have also written to the Queen of Scotland.’ Philip replies (March 6): ‘ The step you took with the Queen of Scotland was well advised, as also of helping the Scots and English who favour her party. You will persevere in this course with due dissimulation.’ On April 6 Mendoza writes again: ‘ The English Catholics with whom in accordance with your Majesty’s orders I keep up communication have sent to tell me by certain energetic gentlemen whom they look upon as their chiefs, that . . . they approach your Majesty as the buttress and defender o f the Catholic Church, humbly beseeching you to turn your eyes upon their affliction.’ All this time William Watts had been labouring in the border counties of England (not in Scotland, as some writers have supposed), and after spending ten months there he returned to Parsons in the beginning of the summer, and reported— what he had been particularly instructed to ascertain— that it was not difficult to enter Scotland. ‘ On understanding this,’ explains Parsons in the letter to the General already quoted, ‘ and after taking counsel with some o f the more prudent Catholics, we sent him back into Scotland itself (remisimus eum in ipsam Scotiam) to explore the road. For our greatest hope is in Scotland, upon which depends the conversion of England. . . . Therefore having collected alms from Catholics and having purchased all that was necessary for this priest, I have sent him with a servant into Scotland, giving him the heads of argument which he should open out to the King if access to him were obtained. The first point was that James should undertake the patronage of the afflicted Catholics, especially those who should fly for refuge into Scotland, seeing that it was Catholics alone who favoured his hereditary right to the kingdom of England. Secondly, the priest was to explain the reasons which should induce the king to incline to Catholics and their religion and to detest heretics— e.g. the security of his own kingdom, succession to that of England which he could obtain only through Catholics, the friendship of neighbouring Catholic princes, respect for his innocent mother detained in prison, his father slain by heretics, plots against his life attempted by heretics and discovered 224 ENGLISH JESUITS AND by help of Catholics. Lastly, he should offer to the king the aid both of his own and our Catholics, but chiefly of the priests, to reduce the kingdom of Scotland to the Catholic faith with whatever risk to our lives. W ith these instructions he departed.’ The exact date of Watts’s departure on this Scottish mission we cannot tell. It was after 4 the beginning of summer,’ and before September. On July 17, 1581, Campion was arrested. Parsons was in the greatest danger. His secret printing-press was seized; the missionary enterprise received a blow which for the moment staggered him. He retired into Sussex for a little while, and early in September found means to cross the Channel to Normandy, where he took up his abode in Rouen, disguised as a merchant under an assumed name. Here on September 15 he received Watts’s first report from Scotland, and this, on the 26th, he enclosed to Aquaviva in the long and interesting letter already quoted. Parsons explains the various reasons which had led to his temporary retirement to the Continent, viz. to confer with Allen on the English mission, and with Beaton about sending priests to Scotland; to set up a printing-press for English books at Rouen ; and to try to get the King of France to intercede with Elizabeth on behalf of the Catholics in England. On the day he was writing he received fresh advices from England, which, he said, ‘ induce me to hasten my return, for the Fathers Jasper Hey wood and Holt, who at last have arrived there, are still a long way from London.’ The servant sent from Scotland with Watts’s letter had been told also to convey by word of mouth certain information which could not be intrusted to paper. On reaching London, and finding Parsons gone, the servant declined to deliver the message to any one else, but forwarded the letter. The nobles of Scotland had appointed a day upon which they desired to have conference with Parsons himself, viz. September 27, an appointment impossible to keep, for it was the very day on which Parsons was writing. Concerning the main point of his mission, Watts wrote as follows:— ‘ I conversed with many of the nobles, and among them Lord Seton, the father of my late host, and the prior, his son, and others, SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 225 explaining the cause of my coming and our eager desire for their salvation. They treated me with great kindness, and introduced me to the king; but what I said or transacted with him (cum eo quid locutus sim aut egerim) must not be committed to these sheets. From the court I retired to the country seat of Baron Seton, where I found a number of nobles assembled. They all joined in assuring me, and desiring me to repeat to Mr. Redman [an alias of Parsons], that whenever he came, as they advised him to do soon, they would ensure him protection, as we were English subjects and not amenable to the laws. They made further promises relating to the king, which I omit here, and they extended their assurances of protection not to ourselves only, but to any others we might send, giving a secret token which I will explain in another letter.’ Watts then gives the names of certain noblemen who favour the Catholic cause—the Duke of Aubigny, Earls of Huntly, Eglinton, and Caithness, Barons Seton, Ogilvy, Gray, Ferniherst, and some others, ‘ to whom our labours would not be unacceptable or profitless, on con­ dition only that we do not put them to any expense. This is an important point, and Mr. Redman will do well to provide for the expenses of the men he sends hither, at any rate for some time/ Parsons tells the General that on receipt of this letter (September 15) he wrote to Lord Seton explaining the cause of his delay. He wrote to England to open up a correspondence with Mary Stuart, promising to come himself very shortly ‘ to arrange other matters ’ ; and also wrote to Watts, directing him to remain, until he heard again, on the borders of Scotland, and meanwhile sent to him money for his maintenance. He continues: * I now therefore as regards this matter rely entirely upon the answer you send me, first, as to whether I am to proceed in it or not.’ He urges again upon the General the importance of the conversion of Scotland. ‘ Scotland is to be won, if at all, within the next two years. There are no laws affecting us [English Catholics], and our language is common to us and the Scots. I have arranged to get Catholic printed books sent to Scotland in future as into England.’ Before closing his letter he received yet another packet from England. He finds that he was in great request there, especially by the prisoners. Others, more influential and prudent, wished 226 ENGLISH JESUITS AND him to do something for Scotland before again exposing himself to the risks of England. Father Jasper had reached London last week. Father Holt was sick for some time, but had now recovered and is hard at work. They write again about an Italian whom they want sent to the Queen of Scots as a teacher of the Italian language. ‘ If any one is sent let him come to the house of the Archdeacon of Rouen, where he will find every­ thing ready, and accurate directions from myself. He should avoid Rheims or Paris on account of suspicions, and should address me as “ Roland Cabel, merchant.” ’ It will be observed that Parsons, in writing thus to his superior, is discreetly reticent of political schemes. It still appears to be simply a question of the conversion of Scotland as a step to that of England, and of providing the northern kingdom with a staff of efficient English priests, though the motives suggested for the King’s conversion are somewhat mixed with statecraft. It is, however, unfortunate that we do not know the purport of Watts’s dealings with the young king, which he dared not put into writing. Parsons’s next step was to order Holt at once into Scotland, seemingly, under the press of circumstances, without waiting for the General’s sanction or answer to his letter. Holt had been sent by his superiors upon the English mission, and it was a strong measure on the part of Parsons thus to deprive England of his services, and on his own account to start this Scottish embassy. Parsons himself may have felt doubtful as to how such a proceed­ ing might be received by his secular brethren; for, re­ viewing the events of the English mission in a letter to Agazzari—a letter which was likely to be, or may have been intended to be, read before the students of the English college—he says, economically, * Holt fled into Scotland.’ 1 But it is curious that before Holt’s departure, and about the very time that Watts was in Edinburgh, there was also there a priest, anonymous or unidentified, acting as the emissary of certain English noblemen in concert with Mendoza. There are some striking differences in 1 Brady’s Episcopal Succession, iii. p. 50. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 227 the proceedings of the two men, if they are two, and also some close resemblances. It is at least strange that Mendoza, who was watching keenly every movement in this quarter, and was intimately acquainted with Parson s projects, seems in his correspondence to know of no other priest sent from England into Scotland at this moment than the unnamed man sent by the lay lords, while Parsons shows no knowledge of any other messenger than his own, i.e. Watts. In any case, two letters of Mendoza to Philip, dated respectively September 7 and October 20, must be carefully read in connection with that of Parsons of September 26. Treasonable overtures on the part of English Catholics were now for the first time disclosed by Mendoza to Philip in the letter of September 7. The tempter was the am­ bassador himself:—

41 pointed out to them,’ he writes, 4 that, in view of the present position of neighbouring countries, the first step to be taken was to bring Scotland to submit to the holy see. This, I said, would cause more anxiety to this queen [Elizabeth] than anything else. I f Spain sent troops to England, France would interfere to prevent your Majesty making yourself master of England under cover of religion. The Catholics themselves see that they can do nothing here unless your Majesty sent a fleet with more than 15,000 men. Therefore— and because they thought Irish affairs could only be made use of to embarrass Elizabeth and to prevent her giving aid to the Netherlands — they agreed with me that it was most advisable to lose no time in laying the foundation of the Scotch project. Even if Ireland were conquered, the movement in England would have to come thence through Scotland, and consequently it was best to begin with Scot­ land. M y proposal was approved of, and six lords who are the chiefs of the Catholics met for the purpose of considering it. They took solemn oaths to aid each other, and to devote their persons and pro­ perty mutually to the furtherance of this end, without informing any living soul of their determination except myself. They decided to send an English clergyman, who is trusted by all the six, a person of understanding, who was brought up in Scotland, to the Scottish court for the purpose, to try to get a private interview with D ’Aubigny and tell him that, if the king would submit to the Roman Catholic Church, many of the English nobles and a great part of the popula­ tion would at once side with him and have him declared heir to the English crown, and release his mother. The priest was to assure him that the help of his Holiness, of your Majesty, and it was to be supposed also of the King of France, would be forthcoming for this 228 ENGLISH JESUITS AND

end. But if the King of Scotland were not Catholic, D ’Aubigny was to be assured that the Catholics would oppose him more than ever did the heretics, and would endeavour to forward the claims of another person to the succession, without mentioning any name, until D’ Aubigny’s intentions were understood. c If D ’Aubigny gives ear, they think of sending a brother of one of the six lords to his Holiness to give him an account of the matter and to beg him to request your Majesty to help. I have not yet opened out further to them, as the end upon which they have their eyes fixed at present is the conversion of Scotland without going into further particulars. They are not to have the matter spoken of in France more than necessary, in order to prevent its being hindered by the fear that it is a plan of your Majesty alone. They agree with me in this, as they are all Spanish and Catholic at heart, and do not wish to have anything to do with France. ‘ When the king has subscribed to the faith, the six lords, who most of them have sons of the king’s age, intend to send them as hostages to assure him that directly he enters England with his army, they will raise all the north country for him, will demand the restora­ tion of the Catholic Church in England, proclaim him heir to the crown, and release his mother.’ It is difficult to believe that Parsons was altogether excluded from the counsels of these six lords.1 They would hardly consider it a breach of their pledges of secrecy to consult their spiritual guide as to the wisdom or lawfulness of their undertaking; and it must be re­ membered that Parsons, if he had not himself at this time agitated in favour of insurrection or invasion, according to his own admission, knew the minds and intentions of those who did. Mendoza, whose main, if not single, object was political, had the highest opinion of Parsons’s ability and usefulness, and regarded him as the real leader of Catholics both clerical and lay. Since the previous winter, when he first became intimate with Parsons, he had been in close correspondence with the chief recusants in prison. He was the depositary of their alms and the moneys they wished to send abroad for the support of the seminaries. He knew personally many of the mission­ aries, and when, for instance, he speaks of the martyrdom of Alexander Briant, a priest who had made a vow to become a Jesuit, he adds, ‘ I knew him well.’ The first 1 Froude conjecturally supplies their names : Earl of Arundel, Lord Henry Howard, Paget, Lumley, and either Vaux or Morley. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 229 persons to treat with the ambassador openly about politics—so he tells us—were the brothers Thomas and William Tresham. Thomas was a convert of Parsons, and William joined him at Rouen, and was afterwards his travelling companion into Spain; and when Thomas Tresham was in prison Mendoza wrote, ‘ I am in constant communication with him by means of the priests.’ Who, then, was the priest whom the chief nobles were sending into Scotland ? Parsons, as we have seen, says of Watts that ‘ after taking counsel with some of the more prudent Catholics, we sent him,’ etc. Yet Watts, a Welshman, was not, as far as we know, ‘ brought up in Scotland,’ and unless Mendoza was referring to transac­ tions of some weeks earlier, the date of Watts’s embassy hardly tallies with that of the priest sent by the six lords; for Watts’s report of his visit to Edinburgh reached Parsons, even after some delay, on September 15. The emissary of the lay lords was back again in London by October 20. On that day Mendoza writes to Philip:— ‘ The clergyman of whom I wrote on the 7th ult. has returned from Scotland after a most successful journey. He was conveyed secretly across the border, and was furnished with introductions to the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Eglinton, Huntly, and Caithness, Baron Seton and his eldest son, and Gray of Ferniherst. They received him well, and he bore himself prudently, avoiding an entire disclosure of his mission until he had assured himself with regard to religion, which was treated as the principal basis of the business. He said he wished to learn from them whether they would admit priests and friars into the country . . . who wished to preach and administer the sacraments. They replied unanimously that not only would they willingly admit them, on condition that they brought money for their own maintenance, but they would quietly manage that they should preach to the king himself in their presence, and should, if necessary, have a disputation with the ministers. . . . He came back with this reply, after having assured them how important it was for the king’s power and aggrandisement, and his inheritance to the crown of England, that the English Catholics who had fled for religion’s sake should be allowed to live in Scotland by consent of the Parliament. They told him they would try and obtain this. He avoided opening out further to the Duke of Lennox, as he depends upon France, and he found him now avowedly schismatic, but in accordance with his instructions from here he went more deeply into the matter with Lord Seton, whom he found very well disposed. He 230 ENGLISH JESUITS AND argued that, apart from his soul’s salvation, the king’s conversion was the only road to the crown of England. Seto?i promised he would tell all this to the king privately.’ Here there appears a marked discrepancy between the proceedings of this priest as reported by him to Mendoza, and those of Watts as reported to Parsons. Watts had seen the king. This one, who is giving an account of his mission after its completion, apparently had not done so. W e have not the priest’s ipsissima verba, but Mendoza would scarcely omit so important a point if he had been informed of it. Mendoza continues:— ‘ As soon as this clergyman returned the result of his mission was conveyed to William Allen, in France, and to Persons, of the Society of Jesus, who was secretly here [i.e.] in France. The latter went to France for a few days to choose the persons to be sent into Scotland, and the clergyman was of opinion that Persons himself and Father Jasper of the Society would be the best persons to go. . . . Father Jasper came many miles to see me here and obtain my opinion on the point. After having discussed the matter minutely, we have resolved to write to Allen, saying that although Persons and Hey wood would be the best persons to be sent to cure the important limb of Scotland, yet we should not deprive the brain of its principal support, which we should do if these two men were both to leave here, where their presence is so necessary to govern and distribute the priests who are in the country, as well as for conducting matters of religion. . . . Besides, the peril to these men is so well known. For these reasons it would be well that Jasper, with two other learned clergymen, should go to Scotland with some others in their train, whilst Persons should remain here. By this means the priests in England would not be deprived of their superior.’ Jasper Hey wood, however, fell ill with sciatica, and did not go into Scotland. Father Holt went instead, under Parson’s orders,1 accompanied by the before-men­ tioned English priest, the emissary of the six lords, whose report (as we have seen) had been forwarded by Mendoza to both Parsons and Allen. They (Holt and his com­ panion) spent the winter in Edinburgh or its neighbour­ hood, whence they wrote urgently begging for more priests, and, if possible, for Parsons himself. Meanwhile Mendoza reports that most of the six lords whom he mentioned were in prison. He suggests that the Spanish 1 ‘ Guilielmum Waytes sacerdotem meis expensis in Scotiam ex Anglia misi, Patrem deinde Holtum submisi/— Parsons apud More, p. 122. ■> ; v l v .V, SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 231 » minister in France should keep in close touch with Allen in order to conduct the business in such a way that the French have not a suspicion that the King of Spain is concerned in it. * Through Allen safe and constant com­ munication can be carried on.’ On December 4 Mendoza gives an account of the execution of Campion and his companions, and on the 11th he writes:— ‘ The clergyman [the emissary of the six lords] who I said in my former letters was again to go into Scotland with another priest [Holt], writes to say that they were well received and have even had converse with the king, to whom they gave some account of their mission. He accepted it extremely well, and said that although for certain reasons it was advisable for him to appear publicly in favour of the French, he assured them that in his heart he would rather be Spanish, which he, the envoy, might write to the Englishmen who sent him. Notwithstanding this, the priest did not entirely lay bare his mission until he had quite satisfied himself of the sincerity of the king and his ministers. H e thought that he would be able to do this by Christmas, so that they could then form an opinion as to the conversion of the king and country. In the meantime, he presses for more priests.’ ‘ We have therefore decided/ says Mendoza, ‘ that Jasper shall remain here . . . whilst Persons should go to Scot­ land direct from France, where he now is, with five or six priests who may be selected, and Allen has been informed of this.’ This resolution and the rumours that it en­ gendered have led M. Mignet, Major Martin Hume, and other historians to suppose that Parsons, with several Jesuits, did, in fact, visit Scotland at this time. But he never did so; and, as we shall see, the Scottish Jesuits, Fathers William Creighton and Edmund Hay, were the persons deputed for this mission. This was displeasing to Mendoza, who argued that it was better to send English priests, who would create less suspicion, while ‘ for State reasons Scotsmen themselves must be treated with great caution.’ Mary Stuart, on the other hand, preferred Scotsmen, as ‘ the English are not popular, especially among the common people. As they are foreigners, moreover, and do not understand the language, they could not do much good.’ Mendoza persisted in his own opinion. He thoroughly trusted Parsons and the 232 ENGLISH JESUITS AND i English Jesuits, and he eventually (in the following March) wrote to Philip that he had now convinced the Queen of Scots that he was right. The Queen, more­ over, in preparation for the expected coup, had written to the Netherlands recalling the fighting Scots who were there, particularly Colonel Stewart, to whom she promised a good pension in Scotland. This, too, did not suit Mendoza’s plans, for he remarked, ‘ The Scots are naturally a faithless people, and it is very desirable that the soldiers sent into Scotland on your Majesty’s behalf should be stronger than the Scots forces, as it is upon the foreign force she must mainly rely.’ On December 18 Philip wrote to approve all that his ambassador had done * in respect of Fathers Persons and Jasper,’ and he ordered a credit of 2000 crowns to be sent to provide for those who should go into Scotland. At last, on February 9 (1582), Holt returned to London with his report. He had, it appears, gone north without having previous conference with Mendoza; and, indeed, until now he was not aware that the ambassador was moving in the affair. When, however, he was about to leave Scotland for the south, he was told by his companion that ‘ the two English lords who had sent him (i.e. probably two of the aforesaid six lords) were in prison,’ and that, therefore, he (Holt) should go to a certain priest—Mendoza is tanta- lisingly reticent of names—who would take him to the person with whom he was to deal. This Holt did; and, to his surprise, the priest took him to Mendoza. The Jesuit remained for two days secretly in the house of the ambassador, who ‘ instructed him as to the course he was to pursue.’ Father Holt was a promising pupil, and before re­ ceiving fresh lessons in Spanish diplomacy, he was able on his own side to tell much to his master. He, at least, had not been able in Scotland ‘ to estrange and sequester his thoughts ’ from State policy not appertaining to his vocation. Mendoza’s account of this important interview is as follows:— ‘ Father William Holt has come from Scotland to confer with me. He is one of the Jesuit Fathers who came some months since by way SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 233 of Germany. W e had quite given him up for lost, as he was fifteen days entirely unconscious. But God granted him health to be em­ ployed in so sacred a cause as the conversion of Scotland. Father Persons, who is superior o f all o f them in these countries, ordered him to go to Scotland in company with the priest who was sent the first time and afterwards returned thither. Holt fell ill on the border, where the other left him. He [Holt] then went to Edinburgh, where he was received, as the first had been, by the principal lords and counsellors of the king, particularly the Duke of Lennox, the earls of Huntly, Eglinton, Argyll, Caithness, and others who are desirous of bringing the country to the Catholic faith. Father H olt, who is a person of virtuous life, and, as I should judge, a prudent man in mundane affairs, assures me that these men show signs of sincerity, as they unanimously pledge themselves to adopt four means of attaining their object: (1) To convert the king; (2) in case the king be not converted, to learn if the Queen of Scots will allow them to force him to open his eyes; (3) with the queen’s consent they would transport him out of the kingdom; or (4) as a last resource they would depose him until the queen should arrive. To forward these expedients they request a foreign sovereign to furnish troops to subject the ministers and heretics and provide against English invasion. Two thousand soldiers would be enough. They would prefer Spaniards, but in case of jealousy on the part of France they suggest Italians in the name of the Pope. They would be sent to Friesland, and thence to Eyemouth. With these they would undertake to convert the country and to bring it to submit to the Pope. They asked Father H olt to return to England to communicate with English personages interested and with the Queen of Scots if possible. Priests should be sent from France dressed as laymen. On no account should these men be Scotsmen, but English, whom they could only expel the country with forty days’ notice. The English who go pretend to be exiles. The language is nearly the same, and they do almost as well. H olt and his predecessor have converted many, and said mass and preached on Christmas Day and Epiphany at Lord Seton’s house.’ Mendoza sent Holt back at once with a Latin letter for the Scottish lords, promising them Philip’s help. He also advised Allen to hasten the departure of the promised priests from France. Nine days later (February 18) Allen wrote to the Cardinal of Como : ‘ W e have had in Scot­ land this winter two priests, one a member o f the Society o f Jesus [Holt], and the other an alumnus o f our College [W a tts?] . . . W e have had hopeful accounts from them before, and now in the beginning of this February one of them [Holt] has come to London.’ Allen forwards their report for the perusal of the pope, remarking that its 234 ENGLISH JESUITS AND

contents are of great moment, and should be kept pro­ foundly secret. This report is attributed by Dr. Knox, and by F. Forbes-Leith, who translates it, to the pen of William Watts.1 It is, however, now clear from the foregoing letter of Mendoza, and by the statement of the writer that he had left his companion behind in Scotland, that it was written by Holt. Substantially it agrees with the verbal statement made by Holt to Mendoza, though, being prepared for ecclesiastical eyes, it has less of a political flavour. Holt repeats that the Scottish nobles expect no aid from the King of France, but they-seek it willingly from the pope and the King of Spain. They think a small force would be sufficient. In the opinion of the Scots, he adds, the most convenient course would be that the King of Spain should send an envoy to the King of Scotland, accompanied by learned priests who would suggest arguments to him, and might even propose a marriage between James and the Infanta. As to his own proceedings he remarks:— 4 With the consent of the Catholic nobles and the advice of my colleague and fellow priest I have crossed the frontier of the two kingdoms and come to London; . . . my colleague remains at Lord Seton's to watch the Catholic cause till I return. M y intention originally was not to have left London before receiving a reply from you or from Father Robert [Parsons], but upon consideration they think it best for me to return at once, through fear the roads or the passage of the Scottish border should be closed,1 etc. Holt therefore went a second time into Scotland in February to join his former companion, whom Mendoza has always known as the political agent of the six lords, and whom Allen and others seem to rightly identify with William Watts, the emissary of Parsons, notwithstanding the apparent discrepancies before referred to in the earlier reports of the same person. Meanwhile the pope and the general of the Society resolved, as has been said, to send into Scotland the two Scottish Jesuits, Creighton and Hay. Creighton had long ago acted in Scotland as a guide to Father Nicolas de Gouda, during his mission as papal legate to the Queen of Scots (1562), and had afterwards joined the 1 It was first printed by Theiner, Ann. Eccles. iii. p. 370. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 235 Society. He was in Rome early in 1581, and at a congregation or chapter of his order had, by the com­ mand of the General, given an account of Scottish affairs which had much pleased the pope. Hence the selection of Creighton for the present venture. He was told to put himself in communication with the Archbishop of Glasgow and the papal nuncio in Paris, and afterwards to receive instructions from Parsons. He was with Father Hay in Paris on January 16, and shortly afterwards was at Rouen, when in company with Parsons he visited the Duke of Guise at Eu, ‘ to confer about the advancement of the Catholic cause in both realms of England and Scotland, and for the delivery of the Queen of Scots, then prisoner.’ Parsons now gave to Creighton as servant and companion the trusted and courageous lay brother, Ralph Emerson, who had acted in a similar capacity for Campion and himself, and perhaps also for Watts. Creighton, who went to Scotland direct from France without passing through England, must have arrived together with, or shortly before, Holt, on the latter’s second journey thither in February. He had to be intro­ duced into the King’s palace by night, and was hidden there for three days in some secret chamber. W e hear of both Fathers on March 7 from the Duke of Lennox, who sent to Tassis, by the hand of Creighton, a letter dated on that day from Dalkeith, as follows:—

‘ The bearer is William Creighton, a Jesuit, who came and told me he was sent to me by the pope and King of Spain. He brought a letter from the Scots ambassador [Beaton]; and subsequently there arrived another Jesuit, an Englishman [Holt], with a letter for me from Mendoza, from which it appears that the king and pope wish to make use of me in their design to restore the Catholic religion and release the Queen of Scots, according to Creighton’s communication.’ The Duke expresses his willingness to do so. He wrote at the same time to Mary Stuart:— ‘ Madam,— Since my last letters a Jesuit named Creighton has come to me with letters of credence from your ambassador. He informs me that the pope and Catholic king had decided to succour you with an army for the purpose of re-establishing religion in this island. . . . He says it is proposed that I should be the head of the 236 ENGLISH JESUITS AND said army. Since then I have received a letter from the Spanish ambassador in London to the same effect through another English Jesuit. . . . As soon as I receive your reply I will go to France with all diligence for the purpose of raising some French infantry and receiving the foreign troops and landing them in Scotland, . . . for I promise you on my life that, when I have the army which is promised me of 15,000 men ... I will land. Courage! then, your Majesty,1 etc.

The Jesuits were now beginning to lose their heads. They had been content for the last five months to be the confidential letter-carriers and messengers of princes and statesmen. They are now, grumbles Mendoza, ‘ taking the road themselves. ’ They have a policy of their own, and offer suggestions and advice to their employers. They dispatch to Mendoza a priest in the disguise of a travelling dentist, who arrived at the ambassador’s house in London on the night of March 25, having letters from Lennox, who refers him for particulars to letters of the two Jesuits.

‘ They have decided,’ writes the indignant ambassador, ‘ that Creighton and Holt should go to Rouen in France, of which they hasten to advise me so that I might go over and see them 1 The good men coolly say this, as if I could ao such a thing without special orders from your Majesty, and as if my sudden departure from here would not immediately arouse the suspicions of this queen [Elizabeth] and her ministers. They ask me to set out at once, as they have a ship ready to take them over to Scotland again as soon as the weather serves, and they say that unless I can confer with them personally they considered it difficult to effect the conversion of the country, and that it is necessary that there should be a minister of your Majesty with whom they could confer in France, they having some objection to the present minister Tassis, as he has not yet been concerned in the negotiations, while Lennox and the rest are so willing to confer with me. They say that Lennox is extremely well disposed towards the affair, and that although he was a Frenchman I had no reason to be suspicious of him. They had therefore given him a copy of the key to the cipher in which the Fathers corresponded with me, in order that he might communicate with me direct. They ask me to write to the Queen of Scotland and advise her in my cipher to send immediately to her ambassador in France two letters of credence— one for Alexander Seton to deal with his Holiness as ambassador, and the other for John Seton to go with a similar message to your Majesty, sending them at the same time heads of the negotiations which they would have to undertake. They say that if it be not possible for me SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 237 to go to Rouen I- should send them an order for the provision of money to enable Creighton to go to see your Majesty in Spain. They ask me, unless there be something of the greatest urgency, not to send anything over the border excepting by the priest they send me, who came in the guise of a tooth-drawer, travel-worn and footsore, as he had come on foot for over three hundred miles, any other way of travelling making it extremely difficult for them to pass.’ Mary Stuart, equally dissatisfied with this new move on the part of the Jesuits, remarked to Mendoza how far their experience in matters of State was from correspon­ ding with their zeal for religion.

‘ You may judge of this,’ she adds,4 by the proposal they make to me to send Lord Seton’s two sons as ambassadors, both of them being so young, and quite inexperienced in matters of such importance as this. It is quite out of the question that they should be entrusted with such negotiations, in which if they were discovered, my own life and the future of my son would be imperilled. . . . You may therefore inform the Jesuits that I will on no account allow that anything con­ cerning this matter shall be done in my name or with my authority unless necessity should demand it.’ She disapproved of sending any one on her behalf to the pope or the King of Spain. She disapproved also of Lennox’s project of going to France to raise forces there. Mendoza’s irritation with the Jesuits for acting in any way independently of his plans was not easily appeased. Mary Stuart, he wrote to Philip (April 26), ( is virtually the mainspring o f the war, ' without whose opinion and countenance Lennox and others will do nothing.’ There­ fore she must be kept well disposed.

‘ I have also instructed the priests who have gone [into Scotland] to act in the same way, only that as Creighton went from France at the request of the Scots ambassador and by order of his Holiness without seeing me, he has changed my mode of procedure, promising, as will be seen, in the name of the pope and your Majesty, to the Duke of Lennox 15,000 men of war in Scotland. H e has no ground whatever for this, as is pointed out clearly by the Queen of Scotland, who says that she does not know the origin of the promise, which I have no doubt that the good man has made entirely on his own initiative, in the belief that, as in May last year, when he was in Rome, his Holiness told him he would assist with the necessary number of men, he might 238 ENGLISH JESUITS AND promise the round number, perhaps under the impression that the Catholics here will rise and assist the Scots the moment they know that foreign troops have come to their aid.’ Mendoza, however, still urged Parsons to go himself at once into Scotland with the money which he had given him for the purpose. He bade him tell Creighton and Holt to remain where they were ‘ to convert souls.’ ‘ Their profession is not that of arranging warlike matters, which must be done by other ministers, their function being to act as intermediaries, for which they are better fitted than any others. But while the ambassador was thus with a touch of irony bidding Jesuits mind their own business, Creighton, having abandoned his wild scheme of meeting Mendoza with Holt at Rouen, had set sail for France with Lennox’s despatches, including an important letter to the Duke of Guise. After conferring on the way with Allen and Beaton at St. Denis, he went on to Rouen, and accompanied by Parsons again visited Guise at Eu. Then Guise and Creighton (followed shortly by Parsons, who for the moment was prevented from travelling by illness) returned to Paris. Here they met Allen, the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Provincial of the French Jesuits, the papal nuncio, and the Spanish minister Tassis. Nothing, however, could be done, wrote the nuncio, until the arrival of Parsons, ‘ a Jesuit who has come from England where he has had this affair in hand for the last two years, and has in mind all that should be done.’ 1 The final result of their united deliberations was the despatch of Parsons to the King of Spain, and of Creighton to the pope, towards the end of May, with 1 Parsons rejoined Creighton at Paris in a few days. On May 18 Tassis reports to Philip the conversation he has held with the two Jesuits, ‘ one a Scotchman and the other an Englishman.’ Froude and Simpson, Major Martin Hume and Bishop Creighton (Diet. Nat. Biog., art. ‘ H olt’) have taken Holt to he the English Father who figured in these important conferences at Paris, but it is clear that Dr. Knox is right in assigning the part to Parsons. It may also be remarked here that the f Father Melino ’ who appears subsequently as an active and prominent political emissary, and is cautiously described by Major Hume as an ‘ agent of the Duke of Guise/ is no other than the same Parsons. The name { M elino’ does not appear in Mr. Foley’s rather imperfect list of this Father’s aliases, unless it be under the form of c Perino ’ (Records, vol. vii. p. 932). Indeed, in certain passages of his career Parsons preserved his incognito so cleverly as to baffle inquirers for the next three centuries. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 239 the matured plan for the invasion of England through Scotland. There is no need to go further with the story. From this point it is told fairly and fully with the aid of the original documents by Dr. Knox. It is only surprising that Father Forbes-Leith should think it still worth while to describe ‘ the object of their mission ’ as one ‘ to secure the safety of the young king and of Lennox by assembling a strong military force to guard them,’ and at the same time to ‘ provide a Catholic bride for the prince.’ 1 The ‘ guard’ asked for by Lennox through Creighton was 20,000 foreign soldiers paid for eighteen months, with munitions of war and artillery. Creighton indeed admitted that the demand was high; and Parsons, heedless of Mendoza’s advice not to meddle with warlike affairs, gave it as his opinion that 8000 or even 6000 men in Scotland would be sufficient to cross over into England. Parsons was confident that his friends in England would do the rest. He presented a memorandum of his own to the nuncio in which he assumed to speak on their behalf. * Lastly,’ he says, ‘ I have to offer to your most Reverend Lordship, in the name o f all the Catholics o f England, their life, their goods, and all that lies in their power for the service of God and his Holiness in this enterprise.’ But to return for a moment to England and Mendoza. W e have seen that Holt and Creighton had sent their letters to the ambassador in March by the hand of a priest, who made the journey from Edinburgh to London on foot in thirteen days, and they urgently begged Mendoza to intrust his Scottish despatches to no other messenger. On April 26 Mendoza reports that he had sent the priest back, as he had come, on foot, ‘ taking with him a looking- glass which I had made for him, inside of which the letters [to Lennox] were concealed, so that unless he himself divulged them no one could imagine that he had them.’ Who was this priest? Froude tells the story of Creighton as if there were no doubt. The one thing certain is that he was neither Creighton nor Holt. Mignet, like Froude, was attracted by this picture of the travelling dentist, but no writer has traced further the 1 Narratives of Scottish Catholics, p. 182. 240 ENGLISH JESUITS AND fortunes of the looking-glass. Mendoza, it appears, was too confident in the security of his device. Early in May three pursuivants or servants of Sir John Forster, Warden of the Middle Marches, observed a stranger in an old grey coat making his way through the wastes and fells of the border. They asked him his name, which he declined to give. They thereupon threatened to take him before their master. Upon this the stranger produced eleven gold pieces and some loose silver, of which they relieved him, but still made pretence of arresting him. They also took from him a book, which turned out to be a breviary, some letters, a bag of instruments to draw teeth, and a looking-glass. After walking with him half a mile they let the man go, but, strange to say, not until he had per­ suaded them to return to him his packet of letters, though not the looking-glass. The men, in reporting the trans­ action, had probably never guessed the real character of the traveller, which was revealed to Forster by the breviary. He angrily threw the servants into prison, and summoned the Bishop of Durham and other commissioners for causes ecclesiastical for their trial, but to little purpose. c After the bishop and the other commissioners were departed from my house,’ he writes to Walsingham, ‘ I, looking more circumspectly into the glass, by chance did espy paper within the said glass. Whereupon I searched the said glass thoroughly . . . and did find certain letters so well compacted together and enclosed within the said glass that it were very hard to be spied out.’— {Border Papers.) Whereupon he sent the whole thing to Walsingham, one of the letters being written in cipher and probably impor­ tant. He at the same time (June 14) reports that he has information of Jesuit priests being with Lord Seton— 4 one Brewerton, a Cheshire '‘man, and one Sheppard.’ Brewerton or Brereton was an alias of Watts, who, how­ ever, was not from Cheshire but from South Wales. It is, of course, possible that Watts was the very man who had slipped through Forster’s fingers in the previous month. The facts here presented sufficiently explain the motives and agencies by which the publicly avowed policy of persuasion initiated by the Jesuit missionaries in 1580 passed into or was combined with the secret SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 241 policy of war and coercion inaugurated by Parsons and Allen. But the facts also make more intelligible the motives which led Parliament shortly afterwards to adopt the extreme measure of the 27th Elizabeth. This Act — arbitrary, indiscriminate, and unjust— by which all priests ordained abroad and entering upon the English mission were declared ipso facto guilty of treason, was not passed till 1585, when the plots and conspiracies, fostered by the heads of the missionary body, were at their height. No one could suppose, indeed, that the particulars of dangerous and clandestine schemes were confided to the clerical rank and file, or that many of the priests were implicated in treasonable practices. ‘ Imagine ye the Italian government, and specially the Papacy/ wrote Allen in 1581, ‘ to be so discreetly managed that every poor priest and scholar knoweth the popes secrets? No, no.’ But the pope’s secrets were undoubtedly in the keeping of some select few of these poor priests at the end of that same year, or in the beginning of 1582; and, which is more to the point, were in the keeping of Allen and Parsons, the masters and leaders of them all. ‘ At the proper time,’ said Parsons in his memorandum, ‘ the principal Catholics in England will receive information of the affair by means o f the priests. But this will not be done until just before the commencement of the enterprise,. . . since the soul o f this affair is its secrecy. ’ 1 These things became well known to the English government; and the known dealings of the few brought into natural suspicion the more innocent proceedings of the many; and this more especially when the Jesuit pledges of 1580 and Allen’s protestations of 1581 were found falsified by the overt treason of 1582. Here we have seen ‘ poor priests and scholars ’ hiding in the London house of the Spanish ambassador, receiving his orders, carrying his dispatches to and fro, penetrating with them to the Scottish court. W e have seen the chief of the Jesuit mission, after making himself possessor of the political secrets of the English disaffected nobles, retiring in disguise to Rouen, and there—in close com- 1 Knox, p. xli. Q 242 ENGLISH JESUITS AND munication with the Duke of Guise, and keeping up correspondence with Mendoza in London, the Archbishop of Glasgow in Paris, and Allen in Rheims—directing the movements of his subjects in England, and sending at least one of them thence into Scotland upon an errand which proved to be steeped in political intrigue. Men­ doza’s looking-glass and its contents, taken from the priest in the old grey coat, spoke volumes concerning the purposes for which the missionaries could be used. As to that active conspirator, Creighton, he was a Scotsman, owing no allegiance to Elizabeth, and unconnected with the English mission, and he did not voluntarily set foot in England. His practices cannot, therefore, be laid to the charge of the English missionaries. But he was in alliance with Parsons, acting partly under his instructions, and bent at this time upon furthering the same political objects. He was captured at sea in 1584 in possession of treasonable papers containing a scheme for the invasion of England to depose Elizabeth and set up the Scottish queen in her place.1 With this knowledge and with these papers before him, could Cecil be comforted with the suggestion that no Jesuit ever plotted ‘ in England,’ and that Parsons’ political agitation abroad was carried on for the securing of a Catholic successor to the throne * on the demise of Elizabeth ’—or, indeed, could such a suggestion be made to square with the actual facts ? Cecil, before 1585, probably knew, as we now know, that a plan for making sure the speedy demise of Elizabeth by the hand of a hired assassin was concocted at Paris by the Dukes of Guise and Mayenne, aided by the Archbishop of Glasgow, and that this plan had the approval of the Spanish agent and the papal nuncio, all of them men who were acting at the moment in complete political concert with Parsons and Allen. To the sus­ picious eye of Elizabeth any Jesuit or emissary of the Jesuits might be that assassin. Creighton, it is said, owed his release from prison to his being able to convince her that he at least would have nothing to do with such practices, and condemned them as unlawful. On the other hand, complaint has been made by 1 Knox, pp. 425, 432. SCOTTISH INTRIGUES 243 apologists of the Order that ‘ certain writers speak of the Jesuits as politicians rather than priests, devising all their schemes for the benefit of the King of Spain.’ Cardinal d’Ossat said or implied, indeed, something of the sort in reference to the seminaries established by Parsons in the Spanish dominions ; and the expression of such an opinion by so eminent a statesman and church­ man, and one not unfriendly to the Society, is very significant. But the statement cannot be defended. The most scheming Jesuits were always priests first and politicians afterwards. Parsons himself excelled as a missionary, as a controversial writer, and a spiritual director. His main or only real end was the subjection of England to the Roman Church. The Spanish power was but one means, the most available means at the moment, for that end. If the Jesuits had thrown away their breviaries and missals, they might have been less dangerous. It was the well-grounded suspicion that they were combining the office of priest and spy, mis­ sionary and recruiting-sergeant, confessor and conspirator, that brought odium on their Order, and aggravated the miseries of their friends. But while they may fairly plead that political action was practically forced upon them in aid of their missionary enterprise, and that rebellion was justifiable, or even a duty, for the Catholic body, they must in turn modify their traditional views of the Elizabethan persecution. Persecution was, in like manner, forced upon the queen by the exigencies of the political situation. She was fighting her best, as Allen once admitted, for 4 the stability and prosperity of the Empire.’ She, too, started with a protestation or pre­ tence that she did not interfere with consciences—a pretence which proved as idle and impracticable as the Jesuit pretence of abstaining from politics. The Jesuit leaders lapsed into conspiracy as inevitably as the queen lapsed step by step into the sanguinary act of 1585. But it is unjust and untrue to history to conceal or disguise these dangerous and formidable conspiracies, with the view of fixing more deeply upon Queen Elizabeth the stigma of religious persecution. THE SPANISH BLANKS AND CATHOLIC EARLS, 1592-94 1

M o n d a y , the 1st of January 1593, opened in the annals of Scotland what Sir James Balfour well describes as ‘ a most observable year.’ It marks indeed an epoch in the history of James vi. On the morning of that day the city of Edinburgh was thrown into a state of excitement and alarm by the news that a fresh Popish plot had just been discovered, and that one George Kerr, brother of Lord Newbattle, and a chief conspirator, had been on the preceding night lodged in the Tolbooth, and that upon him had been found letters by Jesuits and others of a treasonable character, with certain mysterious blank papers signed by the Roman Catholic leaders, George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, Francis Hay, Earl of Errol, William Douglas, Earl of Angus, and Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun. The affair of these so-called ‘ Spanish Blanks,’ with the complications to which it gave rise, agitated all Scotland for several years to come. It was a matter of all-absorbing interest to the Kirk. It determined the policy of the king in his relations to the ministers and the nobles. It regulated, as far as anything could regulate, the erratic movements and wild raids of the Earl of Bothwell, and was the centre round which revolved the intrigues of the English queen. The court of Elizabeth was as much disturbed as that of James by the discovery; and the conduct of the Scottish king in dealing with the conspirators forms the topic of a series of characteristic and incisive letters from the queen. Amid the turmoil of controversies, feuds, and factions, James stood almost alone, or rather was ‘ tossed as a tennis ball between the precise ministers and the treacherous Papists,’ 2 the object either of open attack or 1 The Scottish Review, July 1893. 2 Sir J. Balfour, Annals of Scotland. 244 SPANISH BLANKS AND CATHOLIC EARLS 245 of ill-concealed suspicion and mistrust to every party in the two kingdoms. The excitement which originated in the capture of Mr. George Kerr only partially died away in the battle of Glenlivet and its results, at the end of 1594. A certain air of mystery hangs over every plot of which James was the apparent object. He seemed to play with each as if he were a fellow conspirator, and his own eccentric behaviour makes it somewhat difficult to interpret what would be otherwise plain facts. This is specially the case with the affair of the Spanish Blanks. Historians agree, at least, in applying to it the epithet ‘ mysterious.’ The mystery is in part due, as Hill Burton remarks, to the imperfect evidence which creates sus­ picion and alarm, but in part also, if not mainly, to the subsequent conduct of the king. On this account the matter deserves attention in all its bearings, and fresh evidence of every kind should be carefully scrutinised. Unfortunately the printed materials for this period are unusually scanty. The interest of historians and editors seems to have exhausted itself in the career of Queen Mary. State papers up to the date of her execution, or at least to the defeat of the Armada in the following year, have been printed in abundance and with textual completeness. W e have equal abundance after James’s accession to the English throne. But there is a com­ parative dearth of printed documentary sources for Scottish history in the period intervening between 1588 and 1603. As to English history, Mr. Froude leaves us at the Armada, and Mr. Gardiner does not take up the story until the union of the crowns. Again, Elizabeth’s trusted agent and active correspondent at the Scottish court, from December 1589 to his death in November 1597, was Mr. Robert Bowes. It so happens that Bowes’ correspondence during an earlier agency in Scotland was published by the Surtees Society, but for some unex­ plained reason the editor stops with 1588. For the story of the conflict between James and the Catholic earls on the one hand, and the Kirk and Elizabeth on the other; his intrigues with Spain, Rome, and the Jesuits; while he held fast to his one resolute, fixed, over-mastering purpose, the securing of the English Crown, we have to 246 THE SPANISH BLANKS be content mainly with Mr. Thorpe’s meagre calendar, which is little more than a catalogue of State papers, tantalising in its suggestiveness and exasperating in its brevity. Mr. Fraser Tytler no doubt consulted, and made some good use of, those inedited documents, but the gap has yet to be filled up in detail, and there is a large field on the Roman Catholic side which is not yet thoroughly explored. Meanwhile, it need hardly be said that there is no single book in which the outlines of the story will be found sketched, with such an accurate grasp of the facts, or such concise and graphic expression, as in the prefaces and notes to the Registers of the Privy Council by our present Historiographer Royal. But in the Calendar of Hatfield MSS., published by the His­ torical Manuscripts Commission in 1892, there has been made public at least one transaction of James which appears to throw new light on his attitude at the time towards what is called fi the Spanish treason.’ This alone may be a sufficient reason for once more calling attention to the complicated current of events in which it finds a place. Popish conspiracies or secret negotiations with Roman Catholic powers for the restoration of the Catholic reli­ gion were no new thing in Scotland. As long as Mary Stuart was alive and a prisoner in England, her elevation to the English throne was naturally the first object of all such combinations ; and, so far, there was a certain com­ munity of interests and aim between the English and Scottish Catholics. But after the execution of Mary a divergency of policy, which had already showed itself in some measure, became accentuated; and Scottish Catholics had to act on lines of their own. From the point of view of political ethics, their position all along had been entirely different from that of the Catholics of England. The main object of the English conspirators was to overthrow Elizabeth and her firmly established government. In their eyes the queen was the arch enemy, an excommunicated usurper and tyrant. It was a secondary matter, and one which at a later stage created dissensions and factions among them, who was to be her successor. But the wiser heads and the men who held the reins of action, Cardinal Allen, Father Parsons, AND CATHOLIC EARLS 247 and Sir Francis Englefield, knew well that England had now passed beyond the possibility of conversion. The power, wealth, and intelligence of the country had be­ come thoroughly Protestant. Even the scattered forces available for insurrection within the kingdom—this at least was made evident after the Armada—were insig­ nificant. England, therefore, could only be subjected to the Roman faith vi et armis by foreign invasion ; and for such a purpose even the faithful at home could not safely be relied upon for aid, notwithstanding Allen’s threats and imprecations. It was quite otherwise in Scotland. To the mind of the Catholic malcontent there, the main enemy was not his own king and commonwealth, but a foreign State. James was a possible ally, or at the worst a feeble obstructive to measures which were intended for his own aggrandisement. For it was generally believed that the king was at heart, or at least potentially, a Catholic, and that if he remained in profession a Protes­ tant, he would be persuaded to grant a full measure of toleration. Certain Jesuits and exiles, zealous partisans of Spain, may have come to think differently later on, but the noblemen residing at home were able to persuade themselves that in conspiring with the pope and King Philip they were plotting with fair grounds of hope for the conquest of England and the restoration of Catholi­ cism throughout Great Britian, under the sceptre of James vi. The conditions of the struggle were in other respects also very different in the two countries. In Scotland the oppression of the penal laws against Papists came not so much from the civil legislature and execu­ tive as from the Kirk. The hardship was embittered by all possible theological odium. It was not as in England, where, in theory at least, the State, for reasons of State, insisted upon uniformity of religious worship, and cared little for interior belief in comparison with outward sub­ mission. But, here, it was the persecution of one religious body by another, and though the heart and mind of the people were thoroughly on the side of their clergy, it was plain enough that the power of the ministers would have been far less if it had not been for the continued intrigues of the English court in their favour. 248 THE SPANISH BLANKS Under such conditions—a weak civil government, a country rent by factions, a king of doubtful creed, a compact Catholic territory in the north, with its religion proscribed and persecuted by a clerical body, who, to a large extent, held the key of the position (so it seemed) by means of foreign support—the northern earls could boast of being true to their country and loyal to their king, while they plotted, with or without his concur­ rence, for the extinction of Presbyterian rule and for the humiliation of England. As early as 1584, when the Scottish Catholics, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and the Duke of Guise, sup­ ported by Cardinal Como, were arguing the advantages of beginning the great enterprise on the side of Scotland, Dr. Allen, to their great indignation, insisted rather upon opening the campaign in the south of England, and drew up a memorandum in favour of that view. Besides military reasons, which do not here concern us, he argues that if the attack was made from Scotland, English Catholics—such was the old enmity between the nations— would not believe it to be a war of religion, but would suspect the Scots of a design to subjugate England in their own interests. Then, as to the King of Scots, many men think that he cares nothing for the Catholic faith, the pope, or Philip of Spain, whom ‘ the English Catholics desire to have for their king, as well on account of his well-known faith, as of the justice of his title,’ but that he is rather minded to retain the empire for himself. On the other hand, said Allen, if the army lands in England, the Catholics there will flock towards our side willingly, and then accept aid from Scotland without fear. This counsel of Allen and Father Parsons was of course that of Spain, and, as we know, finally prevailed.1 The moment the news of Mary’s execution reached Rome, Olivares, the Spanish ambassador at the Papal Court, made his preparations for a change of front in his master’s policy. He gave to Dr. Allen, who was now to take the place of the Queen of Scots, as prince and leader of the enterprise, instructions for an audience he was to have with Sixtus v. Allen was to make the pope clearly 1 Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, pp. 66, et seq. AND CATHOLIC EARLS 249 understand that Mary had been well aware of her son’s hopeless obstinacy in heresy, that the Catholics of Eng­ land were now prepared for the succession of Philip in his stead, and that it was advisable for the good of Christendom that the pope should, in conjunction with the Catholic king, ‘ take some good resolution for the reformation of Scotland, to be carried out at the time of the enterprise of England, or afterwards.’ How the Scottish Catholics were to be hoodwinked meanwhile is revealed in a letter of this same Olivares to Don Juan de Idiaquez, the ambassador at Paris (July 10, 1587). Allen and Parsons, writes Olivares, found Father William Creighton, a Scottish Jesuit, possessed of ‘ a whim,’ which was current also among his countrymen at Paris, that the King of Scotland was to be converted, and that the reduction of England was to be brought about in order to secure the succession to the said king. Allen and Parsons, he adds, thought it best not to un­ deceive these men o f their fancy, but to go on temporising with them, and in the meantime to scatter books about England in favour of the Spanish title. Thus the ques­ tion of reducing Great Britain to the obedience of the pope was gradually resolving itself into a contest of two wily and ambitious princes for the English Crown; and no one saw this more clearly than the astute Sixtus v. It is strange to see how slowly it dawned upon all concerned that the Armada’s defeat in the Channel was decisive. The first impulse of the Scottish Catholics was to send Father Creighton and others after the fleet, and to induce the commanders to land their forces in Scotland. The same hope was in the mind of Olivares when the news of the earlier disaster reached Rome. But when the complete failure of the enterprise became manifest the wrath of the Scottish Catholics against their English brethren knew no bounds. They laid the blame upon English pride, exclusiveness, and ‘ unchristian envy,’ and at once made preparations to invite the King of Spain to renew his invasion of England by way of Scotland. In February 1589, a servant of Colonel Semple, named Pringle, was captured in England with a number of letters from the Earl of Huntly, Earl of 250 THE SPANISH BLANKS Morton, and Lord Claud Hamilton, written in the name of the Catholics of Scotland to the King of Spain. These noblemen expressed their deep regret that the fleet had not come to Scotland, where the king would have discovered an incredible number of friends in full readi­ ness, and far more support than ever England could give. They promise that if now but six thousand Spaniards would land in Scotland, and bring with them money, they could enlist forces here as easily as in Spain, and soon give enough ado to England. With this and other letters, offering much military advice to King Philip, was an interesting letter from Robert Bruce directed to the Duke of Parma. This Robert Bruce, a clever, but as it appeared, unscrupulous person, had been formerly a secretary of Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, and was by him trained for political service in the cause of Queen Mary. He had been dispatched to Spain and France on an important mission on behalf of the Scottish Catholics in 1586, and now being himself in receipt of a good pension from Philip was acting in Scotland as his Majesty’s paymaster. No one knew more of the secrets of the conspiracy than Bruce. In his letter to the Duke of Parma he piously consoles himself for the failure of the Armada with the reflection that while heretics triumphed, and some Catholics, like Huntly himself, had 4 bangled,’ God has made Angus, the chief of the English faction, to die, and two powerful noblemen to be con­ verted through the persuasions and prayers of the Jesuits, viz., the Earl of Errol, constable of Scotland, converted by Father Edmond Hay, and the Earl of Crawford by Wm. Creighton, ‘ a very honest man and very wise.* The Jesuit fathers ‘ make great fruit in Scotland, and so soon as a lord or other person of importance is converted by them, they dispose and incline in the very mean time their affection to the service of the King of Spain and your Highness, as a thing inseparably conjoined with the advancement of true religion in this country.’ Bruce further announces that the Earl of Bothwell, admiral of Scotland, and as gallant a lord as any in the land, though a Protestant, is guided by him, Bruce, and will assist the Spaniards against England with considerable forces, AND CATHOLIC EARLS 251 which he can muster, and moreover, is willing to become a Catholic if he could be assured of the safe possession of two abbeys now in his hands. The packet of letters was at once dispatched to James, accompanied by a severe lecture from Elizabeth. If he had taken her repeated warnings, he might have captured before this these rebels, who have grown daily in strength. She wonders at his toleration of notorious offenders, such as durst send to a foreign king to land forces in this country. ‘ Good G od! * she exclaims, ‘ Methinks I do but dream; no king a week would bear this. . . . These be not the forms of government that my years have experimented.’ She implores him to act promptly before the traitors may escape. ‘ Of a sud- dainty they must be clapped up.’ The letters were placed in the king’s hands just as he was about to rise from a meeting of the Council, 27th February. Two of the conspirators, Huntly and Errol, were by his side at the moment. Errol made his escape; Huntly defiantly offered to stand his trial, and allowed himself to be placed under arrest in Edinburgh Castle. Next day the king and the chancellor dined with the prisoner; ‘ the king,’ says Calderwood, ‘ kissed him often, and protested he knew he was innocent.’ A few days later he was set at liberty, with orders to depart to his own country, and he marched down the street accompanied by some two hundred men. The citizens, in fear, kept under arms. The king, whose blind affection, or want of firmness, or crooked policy, may well have appeared incomprehensible to Elizabeth, accepted an invitation from Huntly to a banquet, and went out hunting with him, and with Errol who had again joined his confederate. The two earls pressed the king to go with them, but this he resolutely refused, and threatened them with the loss of his friend­ ship and with revenge if they dared to use force with him. In the middle of April, Huntly, Errol, and Crawford were in open insurrection in the north, at the head of about 3000 men, with Bothwell and Montrose acting as their allies. The king marched against the insurgents, came up with them at the £ Brig of Dee,’ near Aberdeen, with scarcely a third of their forces, but the earls feared 252 THE SPANISH BLANKS an actual conflict and dispersed. The king now acted with vigour. He ‘ begins to be moved,’ wrote Ashby, an English agent to Walsingham, ‘ and will not desist till he has wrecked the Papists, if the Queen will back him.’ The queen did not back him; nevertheless, James suc­ ceeded in completely crushing out the rebels, exacted security for their good behaviour, made captives of the principal leaders, and returned to Edinburgh in triumph. It was reported to England that Huntly would be executed, but the upshot of the whole affair was that he was committed to ward in Borthwick Castle, the Earl of Crawford in St. Andrews, and Bothwell in Tantallon Castle. Others, including Graham of Fintry, who were not caught, were denounced rebels, and there was com­ parative quiet, at least on the part of the Catholics, for some few years. The Kirk at this time had not been passive. On February 6, before the news of the English discovery had reached Edinburgh, the General Assembly, in alarm at the signs of activity among the priests, had made earnest complaint of the danger to religion, and had obtained from the king the Act of the 21st, decreeing the expul­ sion of all Jesuits and excommunicated persons, ‘ the crafty and politic heads, traffickers in matters of State, surmisers and forgers of lies among some of the nobility, dispersers of bruits, and rumours of foreign preparations,’ naming especially Mr. Edmund Hay, William Creighton, Graham of Fintry, Robert Bruce, Patrick Master of Gray, William [Chisholm] sometime Bishop of Dunblane, and James Gordon, uncle of the Earl of Huntly. Early in March there was another Act of Council passed, at the instance of the clergy, of a similar character, while the noblemen, gentlemen, and others entered into a band for the protection of the true religion and the king’s person. The progressive stages of the affair of the Brig of Dee are of interest here, as they are, curiously, repeated, though on a larger scale, in the case of the Spanish Blanks four years later. The political ferment for a while cooled down. James entered into more friendly relations with the Queen of AND CATHOLIC EARLS 253 England, and with his own clergy, and had leisure to devote himself to more domestic concerns. In October, 1589, he left the kingdom in quest of his bride, and seldom was the country more quiet than during his six months’ absence in Norway and Denmark. The most weighty event after his return was the lawless attack on Donibristle Castle and the cruel murder of the bonnie Earl of Moray by Huntly. This led to many political complications and shifting of sides. James’s authority was again weakened, the Kirk waxed strong, and its strength augured ill for the Catholics, who had good ground for alarm. In 1592 the clergy obtained the Act which has been called ‘ The Charter of the liberties of the Kirk.’ Earl Both well became more troublesome, and he now generally played the part of a friend and champion of Protestantism. Meanwhile, William, Earl of Angus, a Catholic, had succeeded his father, the Protestant earl, and took the place of Crawford as one of the three leaders of the papal party. Bowes, whose eyes and ears were everywhere, kept Lord Burleigh well informed of all their secret doings. In March he knew or suspected that George Kerr was to be sent by them into Spain. In May he reported that the Papists had a very dangerous plot in hand, and in June Elizabeth was impelled to instruct him once more to warn James that Spanish forces were about to be landed in Scotland. The king was made angry with petitions made to him to banish the Jesuits and to punish Huntly. He became obstinate and refused audience to Bowes. In the midst of the general suspicion and alarm Robert Bruce, the arch-conspirator and ally of the Jesuits in the previous affairs of 1586, turns informer and offers (in the month of August) to discover the Spanish practices to Bowes. The last letter of the year from Bowes to Burleigh gives information of a secret meeting between Huntly, Errol, and Angus, and at the same time encloses what he well describes as ‘ a strange document, a remission granted by the King of Scotland to Robert Bruce, for treason, negotiation with foreign princes and Jesuits for the alteration of religion, for the receipt and distribution of money from Spain and other offences,’ dated ‘ Holyrood, 254 THE SPANISH BLANKS December 8th.’ By what means, or for what object on the kings part, this double traitor obtained such a pardon is not apparent, but the fact could only add to the uneasiness of the Protestant party. Bowes, no doubt, contrived to give some hints of what was going on to the ministers. In any case, Mr. Andrew Knox, minister of Paisley and afterwards Bishop of the Isles, got scent of Kerr’s intended departure on his Spanish mission, and taking with him some scholars of Glasgow and other friends, boldly set out in pursuit. Kerr was caught by them on December 27th, just as he was about to set sail out of Fairlie Road, by the Isles of Cumbrae. His chests were examined, and within the sleeves of a sailor’s shirt were found the papers and the Spanish Blanks already mentioned. Kerr was taken by Lord Ross as far as Calder, but it was significant of the dread entertained of the power which might lie behind this solitary man with his packet, that he was detained at Calder until the magistrates of Edinburgh summoned courage to come on Sunday evening (New-year’s eve) with 60 horse and 200 footmen, to convey the dangerous prisoner to the Tolbooth. The next day, the Earl of Angus came to his house in Edinburgh. The citizens watched him all night, and on the following morning arrested him and shut him up in the Castle. Meanwhile, the intercepted documents were opened before a number of ministers. The king was absent, spending his Christ­ mas at the seat of the Earl of Mar. Letters were sent to him urging his immediate presence. George Kerr was examined but would confess nothing. On Wednesday night the king arrived. He approved of what had been done and spoke indignantly of Angus as ‘ a traitor of traitors,’ gave out his intention of prosecuting the con­ spirators to the utmost, and convened the nobility and barons for a meeting in Edinburgh on the 10th. The discovery of the plot was announced on January 5th in a royal proclamation. By ‘ the covert and busy travails of Jesuits, seminary priests, born subjects of the realm and some other strangers,’ certain of his Highness’s subjects have been seduced to apostasy from their religion to enter into a treasonable conspiracy for inbringing of AND CATHOLIC EARLS 255 strangers and Spaniards into this realm, next spring and sooner, for the overthrow of his Highness and all pro­ fessing the true religion; and to the ruin of this ancient kingdom and the liberty which this nation has enjoyed for so many years, that it may be subject hereafter to the slavery and tyranny of that proud nation. It has been the good pleasure of God to make the proof certain of the intention of these pernicious trafficking Papists and Jesuits, namely, James Gordon and Robert Abercromby, * whose letters, directions, advices, yea and the messen­ gers, carriers of their credit and certain other chief instruments and furtherers of their trade, God has cassin in his Majesty’s hands when the ships appointed for their transporting were in full readiness to sail.’ But to the ministers these constant proclamations were waste of breath. They cried for deeds not words. The king was accused of lukewarmness and of culpable procrastination. Robert Bruce, the namesake of the conspirator and spy, preached in the presence of the king on Sunday the 7th, and exhorted him to do justice, or else ‘ the chronicles would keep in memory James the Sixth to his shame.’ If the king did not satisfy men’s expectations now, said the Rev. Walter Lindsay, on another day ‘ he would blot himself for ever.’ A meet­ ing was held on Tuesday, carrying certain resolutions which were to be urged upon the king, viz., that he should proceed instantly without further delay, that the prisoners in custody should be at once put upon their trial, and that all Papists and suspects should be removed from the government and offices of trust. There was much discussion as to who should convey these demands to James. Certain noblemen deprecated any such inde­ pendent action, which would only irritate the king. Lord Lindsay cried out, fi I will go down, go who will,’ and was followed by the magistrates and some thousand citizens to Holyrood. The king was angry at their holding such a meeting without his warrant. They needed not to pretend the example of assembling in the beginning of religion. For then, the prince, to wit the Queen Regent, was a Papist: he, James, was a Protes­ tant prince. They answered, it was no time to stay upon 256 THE SPANISH BLANKS warnings, when religion, prince, country, their lives and lands were in jeopardy. Other meetings and conferences took place, and more excited sermons were preached. The king had his own grievances, and would not be moved to action without securing some advantage for himself. Whenever Eliza­ beth pressed him to punish Huntly, whom he personally liked, he would ask her to help him to put down the equally rebellious Both well, whom he now both feared and hated, and whom he knew the queen secretly favoured. So when his own nobles would incite him to active measures against the Papists, he stipulated that he should be given, what he in his defenceless state assuredly needed, a strong body-guard. On the 15th of January, the barons, meeting in great numbers, agreed that he should have at their cost one hundred horsemen, if he would enterprise the work against the trafficking Papists. So two days later the king announced that the rebels now in custody, Angus, Kerr, and David Graham of Fintry, were to be put to their trial; the Earls of Huntly and Errol with Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun were summoned to appear before the king at St. Andrews, on February 5th, to answer to the charges against them; and proclamation was to be made calling earls, barons, and others concerned to provide themselves with arms and provisions for thirty days, and to meet the king at certain places, and on days appointed, beginning with Edinburgh on the 15th February, and ending at Aber­ deen on the 21st, and thence to pass forward to the suppression of the rebels by force. But all this time the prisoners had confessed nothing. Men were still in the dark as to the nature of the con­ spiracy, and the evidence against the suspected persons was of the slenderest character. In the intercepted letters of 1589 the details of the plot and the persons concerned in it stood plainly revealed. In the case of the Spanish Blanks it was all guess work, until January 29th, when 4 a small taste of the torture,’ superintended by the king himself, opened Kerr’s lips. A complete confession was gradually extracted from him, and similar disclosures were finally made by the more resolute AND CATHOLIC EARLS 257 Graham of Fintry on the 13th and 14th of February. They both wrote letters to the king, repeating the sub­ stance of their confessions. The king, in a hurry to be off on his northern expedition, had Fintry tried, con­ victed, and executed at the Market Cross in Edinburgh on the 15th. George Kerr remained a prisoner. As Moysie somewhat illogically puts it : ‘ In respect of Mr. George’s declaration of the truth the king granted him his life. The laird of Fintry deponit the samyn and therefore was execut.’ Two days before this the Earl of Angus made his escape from the Castle, it was said, with the evident connivance of his keepers. A tract entitled, ‘ A Discouerie of the Unnatural and Traiterous Conspiracie of the Scotisch Papists against God, His Kirk, etc.’ was now printed and published by royal authority at the press of the king’s printer, Robert Waldegrave, and it was reprinted immediately in London.1 The editor of the tract, apparently the Rev. J ohn Davidson, after three or four pages of preface to the reader, describes the Blanks and gives the story of the plot as it was extracted from the confessions of Kerr and Fintry, but prints in full only four out of the seventeen letters found upon Kerr. The latter and greater part of the volume is taken up with the letters intercepted, not in 1593 but in 1589, concluding with the long letter of Robert Bruce already mentioned. The last words of the tract are the signature of the man to whom in all probability the discovery of the Blanks was due. No one would gather the extended nature of the contents from the title or preface, but the letters of 1589 give the presumptive evidence, the colour and force, which are rather wanting in the letters and blanks of the later conspiracy. The Blanks were eight in number. Two were sub­ scribed respectively De vostre majestie tr&s humble et tr&s obeisant serviteur Guilliame Compte de Angus— Francoys Compte de Erroll. Two others were signed Gulielmus Angusias comes and Franciscus Errollise comes. Two again were subscribed Georgius comes de 1 Printed by R. F. for J. Norton, 1593. Waldegrave issued a second edition in Edinburgh in the same year. Later editions appeared in London in 1603, and in Edinburgh (apparently from the press o f John Wreittou'n) in 1626 or 1627 The tract is reproduced also in Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, vol. l. pp. 317-335. 258 THE SPANISH BLANKS Huntlie, and lastly two were subscribed in Latin in the midst of two open sheets of paper, by all three earls together with Patricius Gordoun de Auchindoun miles. The letters selected for publication by authority were— 1st, one from Joan. Cecilio, i.e. Dr. John Cecil, the English secular priest (erroneously called a Jesuit), addressed to some ‘ Good Father/ and written from Seton, 2nd October 1592. There is nothing of politico in it, at least on the surface. ‘ The Lord Seton,’ he writes, ‘ in whose house I sojourn sometimes, salutes you* Of the affairs of the Catholics here I leave it to them, to write and relate, by whose means these letters shall be conveyed. My Lord Seton has an haven of his own which may be hereafter very commodious for our mis­ sions . . . if you send any into these parts let them come furnished with as ample faculties as you may.’ The next letter—a very short one—signed Angus (Edinb. 10th October), in commendation of George Kerr: ‘ The present bearer can inform you of such things as occur with us, for we are here daily subject unto alteration,. Ye may credit him as myself for so his virtues do merit’ The third is from J. Christeson, an alias of Father James Gordon, dated Dundee, 20th November 1592, to his assured friend George Crawford, otherwise Father/ William Creighton. Christeson is imprudent, and his language unnecessarily exposes him to suspicion, at leasfo when it is discovered that he is a Jesuit writing t& another Jesuit not unknown as a political agent.

6 Your friends that are here have directed this present bearer to you for full resolution of your affairs in these quarters. W e have1 delayed overlong I grant. But he will show you the cause of all. The next best is ye use all expedition in time coming against the* next summer. . . . If ye come ye will find more friends than ever ye had; but otherwise ye will find fewer because the next summer' many are bound to other countries and will not abide on you no* longer. Haste home here some word to your friends that we may* put them in good hope of you, and they will tarry the longer. . ... Ye have gotten all that ye desired [the editor inserts in the margin, relative to the blanks] ; therefore make haste. . . . W e will abide- here yourself shortly; and I would ye brought the rest of your friends with you that are beyond sea [margin, the Spanish army]. * . . Your wife and your bairns [margin, the Catholic Romans and AND CATHOLIC EARLS 259

their confederates] commend them to you and look to see you shortly.1 The last of the four letters also addressed to Creighton under the name of Crawford purports to be written by Robert Sandesone, otherwise Father Robert Abercromby. He affects the usual style of mercantile correspondence, apologises as Gordon had done for the delay, commends Kerr the messenger, and gives various pieces of news of no great political importance. 41 regret,’ he writes,c and lament heavily the sloth and negli­ gence your merchants have used in answering of your last suit ye propounded to them ; for apparently if they had made answer in due time our wares had been here in due time with our great profit and consolation. The stay and stop of the matter apparently was lack of expenses that no man could, of his own charges, take that voyage in hand; yea some craved a thousand crowns for his expenses. So the matter was one wholly given over, and almost clean forgot until it pleased God, of his Divine Providence, to stir up this bearer to take the turn in hand on his own expenses. . . . If I had a thousand tongues, with as many mouths, with Cicero’s eloquence, I cannot be worthy enough in commendation of this gentleman to you and all your company. . . . Y e heard before that David Forrester [David Graham o f Fintry] has a son, and now has another born in the castle of Stirling, where he is in ward, hardly used. There is but one of our nobility here, which has of the King of Spain a pension, well paid, of twelve hundred crowns, the which apparently are evil bestowed, for he, nor none of his, as yet have done any kind of good in the promotion of the king’s matters. [Note, envy among the Papists themselves.] Wherefore such pensions were better bestowed on others who travail daily and hourly, putting to the hazard both their goods and lives, as this bearer hath done and daily does. . . . A t Scotland, the 15th of December 1592.’ The other letters not included in the ‘ Disco verie,’ but printed by Calderwood, contain still less evidence of any intended treason. Most of them are apparently written by Catholic priests and laymen who, knowing of Kerr’s departure, made use of him as a postman for their private correspondence. Three are by Gordon, using the name of Christeson. One is by John Chisholm to his relative, William Chisholm, Bishop of Vaison. Six are formal letters in Latin to Jesuit superiors abroad, recommend­ ing to their good services the bearer, who is described as 4 Georgius Carus (vero, Deo et nobis carus),’ and as 260 THE SPANISH BLANKS ‘ utriusque juris doctor.’ These are signed by Father Gordon and Father Abercromby in their own names. It would be interesting to know what interpretation was put upon these obscure or trivial epistles until the key was supplied by the confessions of the prisoners. The kernel of the mystery evidently lay in the Blanks; and Bowes at first made sure that they were written over with white vitriol. The substance of the confessions of Kerr and Fintry was as follows: In March of the preceding year, 1592, Creighton, who had been now about two years in Spain, sent a messenger, William Gordon, son of the laird of Abergeldie, to Father James Gordon with letters giving information to the Scottish Catholics regarding his, Creighton’s, recent negotiations with the King of Spain. Philip complained that he had hitherto been deceived by the English, and declared that he was now prepared to embrace the advice of Creighton, both for the invading of England and the alteration of religion in Scotland. For this purpose Creighton asked for so many signed blanks and ‘ procurations’ as could be got from the nobility as guarantees of their support. Creighton, after coming to terms with the Spanish king, was to fill up these blanks, which were to be taken as pledges on the part of the nobles for the fulfilling of their part on the landing of the Spanish army. This army was to consist of 30,000 men, who were to land at Kirkcudbright or at the mouth of the Clyde in the spring of 1593. First of all a sum of money was to be sent for the raising of forces in Scotland. Four or five thousand men were to remain in the country to assist the Catholic leaders to restore the Roman Church, or at least to establish freedom of conscience. The rest of the army was to move south for the conquest of England. Father Gordon showed these letters to Father Abercromby, who afterwards showed them to Graham of Fintry at Abernethy, in April. It was then their intention to employ Sir James Chisholm, one of the king’s household and nephew of the Bishop of Dunblane, to go into Spain. Sir James accordingly had interviews with the Earls of Huntly and Errol, and conferred with AND CATHOLIC EARLS 261 George Kerr about the matter in the month of June, when the parliament was held in Edinburgh, and again with Kerr in October. But Sir James not being able to start so soon as was hoped, the commission was given to Kerr, who had business at the time which would take him abroad. It was thought his selection was appro­ priate, as both his ‘ good-dames’ were Creightons. It was Father Abercromby who procured the signatures to most of the blanks. He obtained those of the Earls of Angus and Errol in October. Kerr obtained those of Huntly. The first six blanks were to be filled with missive letters, and the two last were to be used for proclamations, all in accordance with the advice of Creighton. With these blanks went stamps in wax with the seals of arms of the several earls. Fintry deposed that he received his first knowledge of the affair from Father Abercromby, whom he met on several occasions, and from him he received his final instructions with regard to filling up the blanks under the direction of Creighton. He further declared that the purpose of the army was to take revenge for the death of Queen Mary, that they intended to have ob­ tained the consent and favour of the king, but if he refused, * what would have ensued he knows not, as he should answer to God.’ The various aliases appearing in the letters were also explained by Fintry. The hand­ writings were afterwards verified by James during his northern expedition. In his letter to the king, Fintry protests, ‘ Your Majesty’s right and title should no wise have been harmed. Liberty of conscience should have been craved.’ And Kerr in like manner declared that the conspirators doubted not the king’s own consent to their enterprise. It appeared, writes Calderwood, that they ‘ have had his express or tacit consent, or at least have perceived him inclined that way, whereupon they have presumed,’ and this was the general impression among the Protestant party. So far there is nothing in the least improbable, nothing that had not even become commonplace, in the plot, save the incident of the Blank papers, and this is mysteri­ ous only because it is, in its conception, puerile and 262 THE SPANISH BLANKS unbusinesslike. It is incredible that the hesitating, over­ cautious, and mistrustful Philip i l would have risked his ducats and his army on signatures to documents which might at any time be as easily disavowed against him­ self, as in fact they were disavowed by the earls when challenged by King James. The whole plan seems born of the brain of a dreaming and unpractical priest, and this is its sufficient explanation. The Jesuit novitiate was not a school for the formation of statesmen. Father Parsons, whose diplomatic ability was considerable, may seem an exception to the rule, but his most cherished political schemes ended in failure, and his successes were limited to the foundation and government of seminaries. The Jesuit fathers, however, quite apart from their ten­ dency, or the tendency of many among them, to meddle in politics, were on many grounds excellently fitted for employment as secret agents in international intrigues. Their missionaries were accustomed to move from country to country ; they were well versed in foreign languages; they had friends and a home, in every capital; and their profession or order was a passport of respectability and trust to every Catholic prince. But above all, the Jesuit was commonly beyond the reach of bribery or the temptation of personal greed. He could rely upon his order for ample support during his busy life and for a comfortable home in his declining years. His vow of poverty protected him from ever feeling what real poverty meant. It is true that no religious body has been charged with greater cupidity in the accumulation of wealth for the sake of power, but the more or less wealth of the community as a rule little affected the individual. The Jesuit at least could never think to better himself by selling his secrets to the enemy; though laymen, such as Robert Bruce and Pourie Ogilvy, or even certain secular priests, might well be tempted to do so. The weak point of these Jesuit missionaries was their want of experience and judgment in the transactions of State, into which they were too easily entangled. Mary Stuart understood this well; and as her life might depend upon the wisdom or unwisdom of the zealous fathers, she begged the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, that they AND CATHOLIC EARLS 268 might be properly instructed and warned. ‘ For,’ she wrote, ‘ these good men may make some grand mistake for want of council and advice.’ Father William Creighton was an earnest, dashing, sanguine man, full of enterprise and daring, but credulous and unpractical. Dr. Oliver, the biographer and panegyrist of the Society, gives him this character: ‘ This father was possessed of considerable zeal and talent, but was deficient in judgment. To his misplaced confidence may be principally ascribed the failure of Pope Pius Fourth’s secret embassy to Mary Queen of Scots’ ; and again, in reference to Creighton’s policy towards James vi., Dr. Oliver remarks, ‘ Having no guile himself, he suspected none in his weak and hollow-hearted sovereign.’ However this may be, Father Creighton was un­ doubtedly at the bottom of the Spanish Blanks. He had for long been busy as a conspirator, or the agent of conspirators. Early in 1582 he had been sent with instructions from his General, the Papal Nuncio, and the Archbishop of Glasgow, on an important mission into Scotland, when James was still a minor, under the influ­ ence of the Catholic Duke of Lennox; and he was then introduced into the Palace by night, and there hidden in some secret chamber for three days. He entered into negotiations with Lennox for liberating the Queen of Scots and making the young king a Catholic, and forth­ with carried Lennox’s plan of campaign first to the Duke of Guise and the Spanish ambassador in France, and then to the pope at Rome. In 1584 he was captured at sea, on his way to Scotland with the details of an exploded plan for the invasion of England, and was consequently imprisoned for two years in the Tower of London. His imprisonment sobered him for a time. He wrote to Walsingham, that he considered it a merciful Providence, that by his restraint he had been prevented from entering Scotland, and made fervent promises that if released he would never go there. He obtained his freedom, apparently on account of his statement that it would be unlawful for a Catholic to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. In 1588-89, he was in Scotland again, and shortly afterwards in Spain, where 264 THE SPANISH BLANKS he evolved his famous plot. It was his constant delusion that James had strong attractions towards the Church of Rome; and he no doubt believed that at the first sign of a successful rising among Scottish Catholics, the king would openly declare himself on their side. The Jesuits, then in Scotland, by whom Creighton’s plan of the Blanks was to be carried out, are well described in the words of Bowes, if we can trust the report of these words made, with evident complacency, by Father Abercromby him­ self. ‘ This man,’ writes Abercromby to the General of the Society in 1596, ‘ some four years ago when there were only four of us in Scotland—Gordon, Ogilvie,1 MacQuirrie, and myself—went to the King and said:— “ Most gracious Prince, in addition to other evils, your Majesty has four terrible plagues in your Kingdom.” He then named us and proceeded, “ Gordon is a learned man, but without knowledge of political affairs; Ogilvie has such ill-health, that he can do but little in opposition to our religion ; MacQuirrie is young and inexperienced : but the fourth is an old and tried hand, who leaves not a corner of the country unvisited, and this one must absolutely be taken out of the way.” ’ He adds that Bowes, seeing the king to be indifferent, offered 10,000 pounds Scots to four noblemen if they would seize him, Abercromby; that they had painted his portrait for his more easy identification ; and that his enemies declared that ‘ the victory would be as good as won if three men were cut off—meaning the Earl of Angus, the laird of Boniton (Wood) and myself.’ It was the erudite Gordon and this vain Abercromby who, as we have seen, influ­ enced the earls, always ready enough to fall in with any scheme, however vague and visionary, devised by their spiritual guides. The episode of the Blanks presented little difficulty, then, on the side of the conspirators. The subsequent conduct of the king is, or rather was to his contem­ poraries, less intelligible. It is not surprising that the Presbyterians as well as the Catholics should have sus­ pected in him a strong leaning to the Roman creed, or 1 William Ogilvie, not John, afterwards executed at Glasgow, with whom he has sometimes been confused. AND CATHOLIC EARLS 265 have believed that at any moment he might declare him­ self a convert. But there is in fact no sign of his ever having had such a leaning. He had as much dislike to the assumptions of the Papacy as he had to those of the General Assembly. But he had more fear of the pope; and he specially dreaded the prospect of papal excom­ munication as a possible bar to the English throne. He had an exaggerated notion of the power of English Catholics and foreign Catholic princes, and therefore was willing enough that they should continue to put trust in his supposed papal proclivities and his dislike to persecu­ tion. Hence his secret dealings with the pope and the King of Spain, by the mouth of private messengers, unprovided with authenticated letters of credit, mes­ sengers who could when challenged give no proof of their commission, or whom, if necessary, James could safely disavow. These tentative, dubious, and some­ times altogether fictitious treaties continued to the end of Elizabeth’s reign, and their full history has yet to be written. James would at any moment have welcomed the alli­ ance of Spain against England if only he could be sure that the circumstances would not force him in self-defence to become a Catholic, or that King Philip would not snatch Elizabeth’s crown for himself. With his own Catholic earls, too, he was playing a difficult game. Up to a certain point he was content that they should give trouble to the Kirk, as a check upon the Presbyterian ascendancy, and as a counter move to the intrigues of the English Government. But he was always in danger of their becoming too strong for him. He dared not pro­ voke them beyond endurance by too stringent measures of coercion—and here he showed more wisdom than many of his churchmen—and he dared not encourage them by manifest demonstrations of friendship or toleration. He wished to delude them into comparative quiet for the present by letting them hope to obtain more substantial favours in the immediate future. Father Gordon, it seems, believed in the king for long. Father Creighton put his trust in him completely until James’s accession to the English Crown, or even until the Gunpowder 266 THE SPANISH BLANKS Plot. But others were less simple. In 1596 Father Tyrie told Cardinal Cajetan that he had made up his mind to be no longer deceived with the chimeras he had hitherto had in his head of the religion of the King of Scotland, for he had discovered it to be all invention and deceit. Father MacQuirrie, no longer ‘ young and inexperienced/ learnt the same lesson at least before 1601, when in a Memorial on the State of Scotland he thus gave forcible expression to his opinion of the king, which, with the exception of the too sweeping and one­ sided statement in the first sentence, is probably not unjust.

4 The king,1 he writes,4 is not only the cailse of all the evils which have afflicted the country during the greater part of his reign, but continues to support, protect, and increase them. His language consists almost entirely of blasphemy or heresy. The single object of his ambition is the Crown of England, which he would gladly take, to all appearance, from the hand of the devil himself, though Catholics and heretic ministers were all ruined alike, so great is his longing for this regal dignity. 6 He hates all Catholics, except so far as he can make use of them for the purpose of furthering his design of securing the English Crown. Fear of Catholic ascendancy, or the hope of obtaining the favourite object of his ambition might some day make him a hypo­ crite, but only a great miracle of God’s power and an extraordinary inspiration will ever make him a Catholic in reality. 4 He is a determined enemy of the Fathers of our Society, think­ ing that they are unfriendly to him and that they oppose his claim to the Crown of England. He considers them also causes of discord, sedition, and civil war. ‘ There are two principal motives for his prejudice against us. First, the recent attempt upon the life of the King of France, which he has been told was made by a disciple of ours; and secondly, a book published in England and supposed to be written by Fr. Persons, in which the King of Scotland’s right to the succession to the Crown of England is denied. ‘ Nevertheless he cannot help seeing that in the course of the changes which are likely to occur, and in the difficult circumstances under which he may very probably be placed, it will be in the power of our Fathers materially to hinder or to assist his plans, and he is therefore secretly desirous to get into our good graces. Mr. Strachan will tell your Paternity all about this, and I hope, God willing, to write to you more fully on the subject another time.1—Forbes-Leith’s Narratives, p. 270. It may be that the annoyance and vacillation of the AND CATHOLIC JEARLS 267 king in the affair of the Blanks proceeded in part from the fact that the independent and precipitate action of the conspirators had spoilt some more cautious negotia­ tions of his own directed to the same quarter, though with a somewhat different object. Readers of Calder- wood will have been struck by a single paragraph, headed ‘ The king privy to the trafficking,’ in which the historian writes, ‘ Mr. John Davidson, in his Diary, recordeth on the 26th May (1593) that among the letters of the traffickers intercepted, was found one of the Prince of Parma, which touched the king with knowledge and approbation of the trafficking and promise of assistance, etc., but that it was not thought expedient to publish it. Mr. John was acquaint with the discovery and all the intercepted letters, and made a preface to the printed discovery and a directory for understanding the borrowed and counterfeited names.’ 1 Nothing is known of this letter, nor does there appear to be elsewhere any evidence of such ‘ approbation’ or ‘ promise of assistance’ on the part of the king. It seems incredible that anything of the sort, especially if given in a written document, should not have been pleaded by the earls, or by Fintry in his extremity. Would the king have dared to proceed to the torture of Kerr if the unfortunate man had been possessed of so damaging a secret ? Be this as it may, it now appears that James in the summer of 1592, when the Jesuits and the earls were in the thick of their intrigues, had actually drawn up, not indeed a plan for a Spanish invasion of England, but a memorial carefully weighing, after the judicious manner of Lord Burleigh, the pros and cons of such a project in his own interest. This memorial was originally intended for the use of John Ogilvie, laird of Pourie (who, at a later period, got into trouble by the pretence or invention of similar secret commissions from the king), but it had fallen—whether with or without the consent of James does not appear—into the hands of George Kerr, upon whom it was found with the Blanks. It is, not improbably, the very paper referred to by Calderwood, misapprehended or coloured by 1 History of the Kirk, vol. v. p. 250. 268 THE SPANISH BLANKS

Davidson, under the excitement of the fears and sus­ picions of the moment. Its existence has been only recently made known by the Commissioners of His­ torical Manuscripts, who printed it in 1892 in their report of the manuscripts preserved at Hatfield House.1 Its novelty and importance justify the reproduction of the text in full.

Certain Reasons which may be used to prove it meet, or unmeet, the executing o f this enterprise this summer or not. 1592. [1592, about June.] This enterprise in head is one of the greatest that ever was, since it is to conquer England, * partly by a foreign force, and partly by some among themselves. But since all great enterprises ought to be suddenly and resolutely prosecuted, therefore this ought to be executed at farthest in harvest next. The Reasons Why. 1. All things are in such readiness, both money and men, specially men, that it will be both sumptuous and hard to entertain so great an army all this winter to come. 2. Delay of time will certainly make the Queen of England get intelligence thereof in respect that great enterprises taken in hand by divers princes remaining far sunder, and their army being one part of them in field, and the rest in readiness, will be the cause of the breaking forth of the bruit thereof if time be delayed. 3. It will make the enterprise cold if delay of time be used. 4. Delaying this harvest, it will not be possible to execute that purpose until the next, that corn may be on the ground ; whereas so long delay will constrain the army, else listed, to ‘ skale,’ if it were but only for lack of a colour for their holding together. 5. If it be delayed, the King of Spain will be able in the meantime to dip with her for his own particular, which (if it so fell out) it would disappoint the whole enterprise. 1 Calendar of the Manuscripts o f the Marquis o f Salisbury, 1892, Part iv., p. 214. AND CATHOLIC EARLS 269

6. The Queen of England getting by delay intelli­ gence thereof, she would be moved to stir up in the meantime seditions in the realms whom she feared; as she has oft done for the quieting of her estate; besides the perilling of me so far as in her lay. Whereas, if she were holden occupied that way, she would rather be diligent in keeping her own estate than in the perilling of others. The Reasons to be objected to the Contrary. Antithesis. The greatness of the enterprise ought to be a reason that it should be slowly, advisedly, and surely deliberated upon nam sat cito si sat bene. Wherefore it cannot be goodly put in execution this harvest next. The reasons whereof are the following:— 1. All things are not in readiness, in respect that this country, which is the chiefest back that the strangers must have, has been in sic disorder this time past by so often rebellions, as it will be scarce possible to get it conquered and settled betwixt this and spring next. Far less then can it be any help to conquer another in the meantime. And since I can scarce keep myself from some of their invasions, how much less can I make them invade other countries. As also I suppose, notwith­ standing that this country had invaded and conquered the other, when I can scarce with my presence contain as yet this country from rebellion, how mickel more shall they rebel in my absence, and then, instead of one, I shall have two countries to conquer both at once. 2. Delay of time will rather keep it secret nor make it open. Because so many strange princes, living so far asunder, having had this matter so long in head, it cannot be but the Queen of England hath gotten some intelligence of it as I am surely informed she hath. Wherefore the best way were to make it secret again, to let the bruit of it (spread abroad already) once die down; and when so it is, it may be thereafter attempted of new, with fewer strange princes on the secret of it and with as mickel or more provision of money. 3. As for making the enterprisers cold in it, surely I would they were, in respect there are over many on 270 THE SPANISH BLANKS

the council of it. Wherefore I would think it easier and more honourable to do it only by myself, with some small help of men and money only from foreign parts. In margin.—This reason answers both the 3rd and 4th. 4. As for the King of Spain’s dipping in the mean­ time, I have answered him else by not thinking him meet to mell any farther in the enterprise, except it were by assisting with money. But, albeit he dipped with her in the meantime for his particular, it could no harm, but rather good two ways; as well for putting her out of suspicion of any other farther meddling, because of his dipping alone, as also by holding her occupied so as she could stir up no sedition in the meantime in other countries. 5. This answers also the 5th and last objection. For if either the bruit of it were died down, or if the King of Spain held her occupied in his own particular, she could by no means harm the countries. I submit then that, as well in respect of these reasons preceding as also in case it were enterprised and failed; what discouragement and dishonour would it be to all the enterprisers. What cumber to me and my country1 being next her, for the proverb is certain, the higher and suddener a man climb, the greater and sorer shall his fall be, if his purpose fail; as surely it is likely this shall do, if it be executed so suddenly as is devised; since' both the Queen of England is in expectation of it, as also since the help that is looked for of the most part of the countrymen, will be but scarce while their mistress lives; considering also the nature of the Englishmen, which is ready to mislike of their prince, and consequently easily moved to rebel and free-takers-in-hand, but slow to follow forth and execute, and ready to leave off from [the] time' they hear their prince’s proclamation, as experience has oft times given proof. Upon all this then that I have submitted, I conclude’ that this enterprise cannot be well executed this summer’ for my unreadiness, for the Queen of England’s suspecting of it, and for over many strange princes dealing into it. Wherefore my opinion is, that it die down, as I said before. In the meantime, I will deal with the Queen- AND CATHOLIC EARLS 271 of England, fair and pleasantly for my title to the crown of England, after her decease, which thing if she grant to (as it is not impossible howbeit unlikely) we have then attained our design without stroke of sword. If by the contrary, then delay makes me to settle in my country in the meantime; and when I like hereafter, I may in a month or two (forewarning of the King of Spain) attain to our purpose, she not suspecting such thing, as now she does. Which if it were so done, it would be a far greater honour to him and me both. Endorsed:—‘ Copy of the Scotch King’s instructions to Spain which should have been sent by Powry Oge (sic), but thereafter were concredit to Mr. George Kerr, and withdrawn at his taking for safety of his Majesty’s honour, 1592.’ This remarkable document speaks for itself. It is to be noted that the editors assign it to ‘ about June.’ 1 On the 12th of that month James was in receipt of a fresh warning from Elizabeth with regard to certain designs taken in hand in Spain to send forces into his realm, and he was in consequence offering excuses to Bowes for his former slackness in the prosecution of the Papists, and making reassuring promises of greater firm­ ness for the future. There is, however, in the memorial no word of giving support to the Catholic cause. It is simply a question of securing the English crown, with the aid of Spanish troops and of the ‘ enterprisers ’ at home. These enterprisers are evidently, in the mind of the king, not altogether to be trusted. They appear to give him cause for anxiety, and there are * too many on the council.’ Therefore, says his Majesty, ‘ I would think it easier and more honourable to do it only for myself, with some small help of men and money from foreign parts.’ Yet the document goes far to justify the statements of Fintry and Kerr, and give ground to the suspicions of the clergy and people, that the conspirators ‘ doubted not the king’s consent to their enterprise,’ or ‘ perceived him inclined 1 But perhaps the document should be dated March. For, March 18th, 1592, Bowes reports to Lord Burghley e the stay of the young laird of Poury Ogilvy from goingto Spain,’ and f Mr. George Carr to be sent into Spain by the Papists/ — Gal. S. P ., Scotland, vol. ii. p. 604. 272 THE SPANISH BLANKS that way, whereupon they have presumed.’ On the other hand, the extraordinary statement made by Father Forbes-Leith, in his Narrative o f Scottish Catholics, that James, after the discovery of the Blanks, sometime in 1593, sent the Fathers Gordon and Creighton secretly to Rome, to arrange with the pope for the restoration of the Catholic religion in Scotland—a statement repeated in the article on Creighton in the Dictionary o f National Biography—rests upon an erroneous dating of one of Creighton’s letters, and upon an entire misapprehension of the king’s situation and policy at the moment.1 Subsequent events led to no further disclosures on the ‘ mystery’ of the Blanks. But while the chief culprits were at large, or unpunished, the king himself was virtually on his trial before the country, and soon became the object of the fiercest denunciations. His northern expedition was an imposing demonstration and little more. A band or covenant was formed at Aber­ deen to resist the Papists, cautions for good behaviour were exacted, and a pretence made of seizing certain castles of the Catholic noblemen, who retired untouched and out of reach to the fastnesses of Caithness. The king returned to Edinburgh on the 10th of March, to find there Lord Burgh, who had been dispatched as a special ambassador from the Queen of England, in the vain hope of urging upon the king a declaration of war with Spain. In June, George Kerr, by bribing his keeper, effected his escape from Edinburgh Castle. A t this there was a fresh outburst of indignation. It is stated by a contemporary Catholic writer, that Kerr, before his escape, had made a recantation of his confes­ sion, and that shortly afterwards he confirmed this recanta­ tion before a judge and notary at Lanark.2 The clergy

1 See a note upon e William Creighton,* by the present writer, in the English Historical Review, October 1893. 2 e Vera narratio ingentis et miraculi plena victories apud Avinum in Scotia borealibus partibus, 5 Nonas Octobris, 1594/ MS. in Advocates’ Library, of which an abridged translatioi is given in Dalzell’s Scottish Poems, i. 136. But on the other hand, the anonymous author of the Apologie and Defence of the King of Scotland, attributed to Father Creighton himself, admits the treason and indeed justifies the king’s treatment of the rebels. The Apologie, with other inedited pieces bearing on the policy of James towards the Catholics, appears in the first volume of Miscellanies published by the Scottish History Society. AND CATHOLIC EARLS 273 held more meetings, made more protests and remon­ strances, and in the pulpit ‘ laid all the blame of the disorders upon the king.’ Bothwell assumed a threatening attitude. A Parlia­ ment from which stringent measures were expected was held in July. Bothwell was ‘ forfeited,’ but practically nothing was done for the suppression of the Catholic earls. The king explained to the Commissioners of the Kirk that his advocate, Mr. David MacGill, had pro­ nounced his opinion that the earls could not be forfeited for lack of evidence, an excuse which James repeated in a letter to Elizabeth, adding that he found from private interviews with his nobles that they would not consent to such forfeiture. Mr. John Davidson therefore denounced this ‘ black parliament/ and prayed the Lord to convert the king by some ‘ sanctified plagues.’ A plague came soon enough in the person of this same irrepressible Bothwell, who on July 24th burst, with his companions, sword in hand, into the presence of the king at Holy- rood, made him virtually his prisoner, and finally obtained a fictitious trial and acquittal, and a reconciliation on his own terms. In September the clergy of the Synod of Fife still further irritated James by taking upon them­ selves to excommunicate the Catholic earls, and in October Bothwell and his adherents had again risen in arms. While the king was in progress to suppress disorders in the south, the three excommunicated earls threw themselves at his feet on the road near Fala, pro­ tested their innocence of the Blanks or of any conspiracy to bring in foreign forces, but asserted their fidelity to their creed, and demanded a fair trial. They were bidden to put themselves in ward at Perth, and there await their trial. They had meanwhile summoned their adherents to assemble in arms for the occasion. The clergy, con­ vened in Edinburgh, earnestly petitioned the king that the promised trial should be real and not a pretence, and that the rebel earls should be more strictly guarded. While the king cautiously temporised in the interests of peace, and from time to time changed his plans as to nlace and mode of the trial, the clergy and citizens of Edinburgh resolved that there should be an armed force 274 THE SPANISH BLANKS on their own side to enforce justice; and civil war was imminent. Finally, the King and his Councillors, seeing the danger of any extreme course, baffled and amazed the clergy by the ‘ Act of Abolition’ (Nov. 26). Toleration of popery was put out of the question, but the three earls, with Gordon of Auchendoun and Sir John Chisholm, were pronounced ‘ free and unaccusable all time coming ’ of the crimes with which they had been charged; and all proceedings against them were annulled, on condition that they either retaining their estates embraced Presby- terianism, or retaining their faith, went into exile. They were given till the following first of January to make up their minds. Upon this there is a fresh outcry, more bitter letters from Elizabeth, who ‘ rues her sight to see so evident a spectacle of a seduced king, abusing counsel and guiding awry his kingdom,’ and renewed intrigues with Bothwell and the fighting party of Protestants. Mr. Bruce preached (Dec. 13) that ‘ the king’s reign should be short and troublesome if he did not abolish the Act of Abolition.’ Early in January Lord Zouch came, as Lord Burgh had come before, on an especial embassy from England, but meanwhile the three earls had lost the benefit, such as it was, of the Act, by their contemptuous rejection of its conditions. Parliament was summoned to meet in April to deal with the crisis. Proclamation was made that the lieges should accom­ pany the king in pursuit of Bothwell, who was now, secretly aided by Elizabeth, posing more than before as the champion of the Kirk. Mr. Bruce again threatened from the pulpit: ‘ Howbeit Bothwell was out of the way, the king would never want a particular enemy till he fought the Lord’s battles against the wicked: the Lord Bothwell had taken the protection of a good cause, at least the pretence thereof, to the king’s shame.’ On April 3rd occurred the ‘ Raid of Leith,’ the last serious outbreak of this formidable madman. He announced his intention of having the King’s Councillors banished, because, ‘ by their means, the amity between England and Scotland was endangered, mass priests suffered to wander through the country for the surety of the Spaniard who was shortly to arrive.’ He advanced upon Edinburgh AND CATHOLIC EARLS 275 at the head of six hundred horse, with loud shouts of * God and the Kirk,’ but, after a slight skirmish, retired before the superior forces of the king, and eventually, to the disgust of his former friends, entered into close alliance with the.Catholic earls. A t the moment of the Raid of Leith James had penitently protested, in the Church of St. Giles, ‘ If the Lord give me victory over Bothwell, I shall never rest till I pass upon Huntly and the excommunicated lords.’ Six days afterwards he issued a proclamation for a general muster at Dundee and Aberdeen, and it seemed as if at last he was to be goaded into action. It was not, how­ ever, till the middle of July that a daring move on the part of Huntly and his friends brought matters to a head. On the 16th of that month a Spanish ship, from which Father Gordon had just been permitted to land in safety, was seized at Aberdeen, together with some English priests, and the Papal Nuncio, Sampiretti, who was the bearer of a large sum of money from the pope to the rebel earls. Angus and Errol, followed by Huntly with a body of horsemen, came down upon the city, and, under threat of instantly committing it to the flames, com­ pelled the magistrates to deliver up the prisoners and their goods. It was impossible for the king to over­ look such an overt act of rebellion. The young Earl of Argyll was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the North, and given commission to pursue the insurgents with fire and sword, while the king more leisurely collected an army in the south. Argyll with seven or eight thousand men encountered the superior forces of Huntly and Errol, who were supported by a strong body of cavalry and the ministrations of several Jesuits, at the battle of Glenlivet, or Balrinnes, in Banffshire.1 Argyll was completely routed, but James now hastened forward with his levies; and the rebels, who had suffered much, and who, more­ over, were always anxious to avoid a direct conflict with the king, once more fled to 4 their lurking holes in Caith­ ness,’ while James had to be content with demolishing their castles and proclaiming a moral victory. The terms of the strange league between Bothwell and the 1 The relative numbers engaged are, however, variously estimated. 276 SPANISH BLANKS AND CATHOLIC EARLS

Catholics soon leaked out. James was to have been put into perpetual imprisonment, the prince crowned in his place, and Huntly, Errol, and Angus appointed regents. But any real danger from the Catholic earls had now passed away, though their name continued to inspire fear among the ministers for many years to come. In March 1595, Huntly and Errol were compelled to go into exile, while Bothwell, in poverty and disgrace, made his escape to France. The two exiled earls were, how­ ever, back in Scotland in September 1596. They saved their lands, but lost something of their courage and fidelity to their creed. In June of the following year, at Aberdeen, they openly confessed their apostasy from the Kirk, hypocritically recanted their errors, and with unusual pomp of ceremony, and amid much popular rejoicing and festivity, were solemnly absolved from their excommunication. JOHN CRAIG1

T h e first edition of ‘ A Shorte Summe of the whole Catechisme,’ by John Craig, printed at Edinburgh by Henrie Charteris in 1581, a work of great authority in its day, is one of the rarest of early printed Scottish books. Neither the British Museum, the Bodleian, nor any of the Scottish Universities, can boast of its pos­ session. The late Mr. David Laing made diligent search for it for many years, but without success. The editor knows of but two copies, one in the Advocates’ Library, and the other among the rare bibliographical treasures of his kind and valued friend, Mr. James Gibson Craig. It is at his request and in accordance with his instructions that the present facsimile reprint has been prepared from the copy in his possession. The Catechism has been indeed frequently reprinted, but all the early editions are extremely scarce, and have been almost lost sight of by bibliographers. It was printed in London by John Wolfe in 1583, and again by Robert Waldegrave in 1584, by Thomas Orwin in 1589, and by Robert Harrison in 1597. In Edinburgh an edition was printed by John Wreittoun in 1632.2 Dr. Horatius Bonar has recently reproduced that of 1597 in his collection of ‘ Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation,’ London, 1866. A t the end of his Catechism Craig printed the Con­ fession of Faith, or National Covenant, which he had drawn up a few months before at the desire of James vi., 1 This account of Craig1 originally appeared as an Introduction to Craig's ‘ Catechisme/ The Introduction is accompanied with the following-advertise­ m ent:— ‘ This facsimile reprint has been executed at the desire and under the direction of Mr. James Gibson Craig, from the almost unique copy in his possession. It is at his request also that the Catechism has been prefaced by an introductory memoir of the life and works of the author, John Craig, the relative and tutor of the celebrated jurist of that name, from whom Mr. Gibson Craig is lineally descended.’ 2 Lowndes mentions only the first edition and a reprint at London in 1591; but there is some doubt if any reprint was made at that date. 278 JOHN CRAIG

and which was subscribed by the king and his household, January 28, 1580-1. The original of this famous docu­ ment, with signatures attached, is preserved in the Advocates’ Library. In publishing it as an Appendix to his Catechism, the author 4 thought good to adde, for the better confirmation of this confession, the iudgement of the ancient and godlie Fathers concerning the authority of the holy scriptures,’ and next,4 the open and shameles blasphemies of the late Papistes, spued out and written in contempt ’ of the same. This larger Catechism, here reprinted, should not be confounded, as it has been by several writers, with an abridged work of a similar character, first published by Craig in 1591-2, entitled, 4Ane Form of Examination before the Communion.’ 1 This smaller Catechism was prepared by the direction of the General Assembly, August 1590. In July 1591 the Assembly 4 thought it meet to be imprintit, being be the Author thairof con­ tracts in some shorter Bounds,’ and in May 15922 it was decreed 4 that every Pastor travel with his Flock, that they may buy the samen Buik, and read it in their Families, quhereby they may be better instructit; and that the samen be read and learnit in Lector’s Schools in place of the little Catechism,’ ix. of 4 The Maner to examine Children,’ at the end of Calvin’s Catechism. This 4 Form of Examination,’ frequently reprinted, will be found described as Craig’s Catechism in Dunlop’s Collection of Confessions of Faith, etc., Edinb. 1722. It has also been included in the Collection of Dr. Bonar. It may be well to mention here some other works attributed to this divine. In 1565 Craig, in conjunction with John Knox, composed the treatise on Fasting, entitled, 4 The Ordoure and Doctrine of the General Fast, Appoynted by the General Assemblie of the Church of Scotland: Halden at Edinburgh the 25 Day of Decem­

1 The Catechism of 1581 was unknown to Mr. James Scott, the author of the Lives of the Protestant Reformers in Scotland, who communicated in 1811 several articles, signed I. S. P ., to the Edinburgh Christian Instructor on the Life of John Craig-. It was unknown also to Tytler (Life of Sir Thomas Craig, p. 26) and to Dr. Hew Scott (Fasti Eccles. Scot., Pt. i. p. 150), nor is any reference made to it in the Encycl. Britannica (ninth edition, artt. Catechism and Craig). 2 Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 774, 784, 788. JOHN CRAIG 279 ber, 1565. Set down by John Knox and John Craig at the Appoyntment of the Assemblie.’ This is also re­ printed in Dunlop’s Collection. Again, in August 1590, it was ordained by the General Assembly that ‘ the brethren of the presbytery of Edinburgh should peruse an answer set out by Mr. Craig against a pernicious writing put out against the Confession of Faith, together with the Preface made by Mr. P. Davidson.’ 1 But it does not appear that this work was ever committed to print. There is little doubt, however, that Craig was the translator of fifteen Psalms, which bear the signature 41. C.,’ in the Metrical Psalter, printed at Edinburgh in 1565.2 Notwithstanding the very important part which Craig played in the foundation of the Protestant Kirk, and the influence which he wielded in all the affairs of his country during the space of forty years, he has left behind him but scanty materials for a biography. W e possess neither his sermons nor his correspondence, not even his portrait. It is mainly from the minutes of the General Assemblies, where his legal knowledge and habits of business were in great request, that we gather the amount of silent work done by him in favour of the cause which he had espoused. Archbishop Spottiswoode has put on record a fair estimate of the character of this strenuous opponent of prelacy :—e This man whilst he lived was held in good esteem, a great divine and excellent preacher, of a grave behaviour, sincere, inclining to no faction, and, which increased his reputation, living honestly, without ostenta­ tion or desire of outward glory. ’ 3 The antecedents of the men who became the principal agents in the ecclesiastical revolutions of the sixteenth century are always of much interest. The early life of John Craig was remarkable for its vicissitudes and adven­ tures, and the training which he went through is not without significance in its bearing on his subsequent career. He was born in 1512, and belonged to the same family as the illustrious lawyer Sir Thomas Craig

1 M'Crie, Life of Melville, p. 224; Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 777. 2 Livingston’s Scottish Metrical Psalter, p. 27. 3 Spottiswoode, ed. 1851, vol. iii. p. 91. 280 JOHN CRAIG of Riccarton, who, it appears, was his near relation and at one time his pupil. His father was slain at the field of Flodden. John completed his education at the university of St. Andrews, and then passed into England where he became tutor to the children of Lord Dacres. After two years he returned to Scotland and joined the Dominicans in their house at St. Andrews. He there fell under suspicion of heresy—on what point we are not informed—but apparently he cleared himself without difficulty, and after a short imprisonment went back to England about the year 1536, with the hope of getting to Cambridge through the influence of his friend Lord Dacres. Failing in this he went abroad and made his way to Rome, where he attracted the notice of Cardinal Pole. The cardinal, who held moderate opinions upon many points of controversy between the churches and may have had some influence in forming the mind of young Craig, then about twenty-four years of age, pro­ cured for him admission into a convent of the Dominicans at Bologna. Here Craig appears to have won esteem and distinction. It may be presumed that he became a priest, but it is not clear whether he was ordained in Scotland or in Italy. At Bologna he was made Master of Novices, an office which implies in its bearer a reputation for piety, as well as an influence over men. His practical talents, moreover, led to his employment in various commissions on certain affairs of his Order in Italy and in the island of Chios; and on his return he was made Rector of the Dominican College. Craig at this time must have been well grounded in the theological science of the Church to which he be­ longed. Bologna was a flourishing centre of Catholic learning. Craig must have been there in 1547, when the Council of Trent was transferred to that city, where its second session was held in the palace of the archbishop. The doctrines of the German Reformers had however penetrated even into the strongholds of the Pontifical territory. John Mollio had in his lectures at the univer­ sity used dangerous language on points of theology, which brought upon him a citation to Rome, an admoni­ tion to abstain in future from expositions of St. Paul, and JOHN CRAIG 281 finally, at the request of the archbishop, his removal from the university. Bucer, in 1541, congratulates the Pro­ testants of the city on their progress, and a few years later they can boast of being able to raise, if need be, 6000 soldiers to fight against the pope.1 Yet there is nothing to show that Craig entertained any strong in­ clinations towards the new learning or had in any way lost the confidence of his superiors until many years later. One day, in the library of the Inquisition, he fell in with a copy of Calvin’s Institutes, with which he was much impressed. He appears to have confided his now altered state of mind to a venerable friar, a Scotsman by birth according to one tradition,2 who, while expressing his entire sympathy with his friend, earnestly warned him to keep his own counsel, or to seek refuge in some Protes­ tant country. Craig, however, made no secret of his new opinions, and consequently soon found himself once more a prisoner, and this time within the walls of the Inquisi­ tion at Rome. Here he was confined for nine months, thrown, if we may trust the narrative of John Row, into ‘ a base prison, or rather pit, into the whilk the river Tibris did everie tyde flowr, so that the prisoners stood in water some tymes almost to their middle.’ With Paul iv., who then occupied the papal chair, Craig seemed to have but small chance of escape. The chief interests of this rigorous and austere pontiff centred in the Inquisition, which he had been the means of restoring. He was busy during his pontificate with enlarging its jurisdiction and in legislating for its action, and in his zeal against heretics he authorised the applica­ tion of torture for the detection of their accomplices. In his dying moments he commended his favourite institution to the care of the cardinals. He expired on the 18th of August 1559. On the 19th Craig was to be burnt. The pope had not been popular. As soon as his death was made known there were riots in the city, the mob broke in pieces the statue which had been erected to him, set fire to the buildings of the Inquisition, ill-used its officers, and let all the prisoners go free.

1 M a rie’s ’Reformation in Italy, ed. 1827, pp. 79, 83. 2 M'Crie’s Life of Knox, ed. 1839, p. 238. 282 JOHN CRAIG

Craig, after his hairbreadth escape from martyrdom, seems to have sought refuge for a time in the suburbs of Rome. Meanwhile a company, either of banditti or of papal soldiers sent to arrest the runaway, came upon his hiding-place ; and his life or his liberty was once more in danger. But the good fortune which had opened for him so unexpectedly the doors of his prison did not desert him. The leader of the band took Craig aside, and asked him if he did not remember a poor wounded soldier in Bologna who, in dire distress, had begged of him some relief. Craig answered that he did not. cBut I do,’ said the other, ‘ and I am the man.’ It turned out that Craig had shown great kindness to the soldier, who now, to repay the debt, at some personal risk helped Craig with money and counsel to make good his escape. Spottis- woode says that Craig returned to Bologna, where he trusted some former acquaintances would befriend him, but finding that they ‘ looked strange,’ and fearing to be again entrapped, he slipped away to Milan and thence to Vienna. The only original sources for this portion of Craig’s life are the Histories of Spottiswoode and Row,1 who differ in many points of detail. Row tells the story of the adventure with the soldiers twice over and with con­ siderable fulness, but with some discrepancies between the two accounts. He says nothing of a second visit to Bologna, and gives a more Protestant complexion to the conduct of Craig throughout. He moreover supposes that between the period of Craig’s conversion and his delation for heresy, there was an interval during which he had charge of the education of some children in the family of an Italian nobleman who professed the Reformed faith. This nobleman and other companions of Craig, it is said, shared the latter’s imprisonment and escape, but were carried back to the Inquisition by the soldier who had connived at the flight of the friar. Dr. M ‘Crie, in his Life of Knox, adopting this version of the story, states that Craig ‘ obtained his discharge ’ from the Dominican con­ vent at Bologna. It would be interesting if from original

1 Spottiswoode, vol. iii. pp. 91-93; Row’s Historie of the Kirk of Scotland (Wodrow Society), Coronis, p. 415, and Additions to the Coronis, pp. 457-461. JOHN CRAIG 283 documents at Bologna or Rome the facts of the case, and the character of his convictions at this time, could be ascertained with certainty. There can be little doubt that at Vienna he preached as a Dominican friar. In the meantime another incident occurred on his journey, which, says Spottiswoode, ‘ I should scarce relate, so incredible it seemeth, if to many of good place he himself had not often repeated it as a singular testi­ mony of God’s care of him, and this it was. When he had travelled some days, declining the highways out of fear, he came into a forest, a wild and desert place, and being sore wearied he lay down among some bushes on the side of a little brook, to refresh himself. Lying there pensive and full of thoughts (for neither knew he in what be was, nor had he any means to bear him out of the way), a dog cometh fawning, with a purse in his teeth, and lays it down before him. He, stricken with fear, riseth up, and looking about if any were coming that way, when he saw none, taketh it up, and construing the same to proceed from God’s favourable providence to­ wards him, followed his way till he came to a little village, where he met with some that were travelling to Vienna, in Austria, and changing his intended course, went in their company thither.’ Row tells substantially the same story, but with additional circumstances and signs of legendary growth:— ‘ Mr. Craig did boast the dog from him, fearing that he should 'have been chal­ lenged for stealing so pretty a dog, but the dog would not be boasted from him, but followed him a space out of the toune. . . . A t last Mr. Craig began to make of the dog, and wes content, seing he wold not goe back, to take him to beare him companie in his travells, and so the dog followed him for some dayes, and waited carefulie on him as his master ’ ; and it was not till later on, when Craig, overcome with heat and fatigue, had betaken him­ self to prayer, that 4 his dog, his kynd fellow-traveller, comes to him, and with his foote skreapes upon his shoulder. After he had skreaped once againe and the thrid tyme, Mr. Craig lookes up, and sies in the dog’s mouth a full purse. The dog shakes the purse upon Mr. Craig, offering it to him: he was astonied, and 284 JOHN CRAIG feared to touch the purse, but the dog looking kyndlie in his face . . . Mr. Craig tooke the purse out of the dog’s mouth, and opening it, finds it ane purse full of gold, all of one kynd of gold . . . and being then well provided, he travels on, and after some stay in France, he comes home to Scotland, and brought with him to Edinburgh the dog, the purse, and some of the gold.’ 1 ‘ This ’ (adds Row), * though it may seem fabulous to some, I know it to be als certane as any humane thing can be, for the wife of this worthie servant of Jesus Christ, living in Edinburgh (where he wes one of the toune ministers, and very honest, streight and famous in his tyme), sur­ viving her husband for many yeares, untill the yeare 1630, did often relate this historie, with all the passages of it, to me and many others. Shee wes an honest woman, fide digna, well knowen in Edinburgh under the name of Dame Craig.’ It is evident that the episode of the dog obtained some notoriety during Craig’s lifetime, and the mysterious character of the facts was apparently not denied by his bitterest theological opponents. The comments upon it made by Dr. John Hamilton, a secular priest and a very able champion of Catholicism, are worth reproducing, if only to illustrate the methods of controversy in use in his day, and the value of his information. In his ‘ Facile Traictise, contenand first ane infallible reul to discerne trew from fals religion,’ etc., published at Louvain in 1600, Hamilton, after some strong denunciations of the marriages of the Reformers, writes:— ‘ W e have ane notable example of Frere John Craig, who cust of his coule, gangand throw ane forrest in Italie, as he vantit himself in sindrie compagnies, because an blak dog gave to him be the way ane purse of gold. The couleur of the dog may declaire gif it was send be ane guid spirit or nocht, for the halie spirit discendit vppon Christ in the

1 This portion of Row’s narrative is accepted as historical by Dr. Scott, Fasti Eccles. Scot., vol. i. p. 82. An account of Craig’s foreign adventures will be found also in Dr. M fCrie’s Life of Knox (sixth ed. pp. 236-240), and more briefly in Tytier’s Life of Sir Thomas Craig. The story of the dog is quoted by George Sinclair, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, in his Satan's Invisible World Discovered, where it certainly appears, as Mr. Hill Burton remarks (Hist, of Scotland, vol. v. p. 149), f in rather awkward company.* JOHN CRAIG 285 lyklines of a whyt dow; for this apostacie this defrokit frere was maid ane apostle of this fyrst Evangile in Edinbrocht; quhair he, being about fourscore zearis of aage, mariet a zoung las of xv zearis auld : of whais sacri­ legious mariage sprang out a cursit generation, as the inhabitants and ane of the chief ministers of Edinbrocht can beare witness.’ 1 It is scarcely necessary to remark that this last statement, which may be due to the same imagination which supplied the colour of the dog, cannot be reconciled with the facts. But to return. A t Vienna Craig met with a favourable reception. Spottiswoode says that he preached before Maximilian 11., who ‘ liking the man and the manner of his preaching would have detained him ’ ; and several writers, in relating the circumstance, have repeated the error of supposing that the fugitive friar was befriended by the Emperor. But Maximilian did not succeed his father Ferdinand in the imperial throne till July 1564, about four years after Craig had left Vienna. As archduke, however, Maxi­ milian had already incurred the displeasure of his more Catholic father, as well as of the pope, for his marked leaning towards Lutheran doctrines and his correspon­ dence with the leaders of the Protestant party. In 1558 Paul iv. hesitated to recognise Ferdinand as Emperor, and severely blamed him for being the cause of his son’s alienation from the Catholic faith by having given him a heretical education. The reproaches of the pope gave a fresh stimulus to Maximilian’s opposition to the Roman church, and at this moment he was, no doubt, more than usually inclined to listen with pleasure to one who had so recently been a sufferer from the same pope’s persecuting zeal. Craig was, however, at Vienna only a short time before the turning of the tide. Pius iv., the successor of Paul, showed a more conciliatory disposition towards the imperial family, sent the celebrated Hosius to discuss matters of controversy with Maximilian, and, at the inter­ cession of Ferdinand, went so far as to grant the chalice to the laity at Communion, the refusal of which had been a subject of much scruple with the archduke. Before

1 Facile Traictise, p. 439. See the comments of Lo/d Hailes (Life of John Hamilton, p. 11), who quotes the greater part of this passage. 286 JOHN CRAIG Maximilian ascended the throne he had become again reconciled to his father’s creed. Meanwhile the news of Craig’s presence in Vienna had reached the pope’s ear, and he wrote insisting on the restitution of the con­ demned heretic to the authorities of the Inquisition. The archduke fortunately preferred to send him with letters of safe-conduct through Germany into England, where, learning of the ecclesiastical changes which had just taken place in his native country, Craig hastened to Edinburgh and at once offered his services to the Reformed Church. Craig made his first appearance as a Protestant minister of the Scottish Church in the little chapel of St. Magdalen, in the Cowgate, where he preached to a select number of learned men in Latin; for it is said that during his absence abroad for twenty-four years, he had to some extent lost the use of his native language. Among his hearers at this time was probably the accom­ plished young scholar Thomas Craig, before mentioned, who having also just returned from abroad, where he had studied in the French universities, now placed himself under the guidance of his relative with a view to com­ pleting his higher education before passing advocate, which he did in 1563.1 In 1561 Craig was appointed minister at Holyrood House, an appointment which can have been little more than nominal after the arrival of Queen Mary in the month of August. In April of the following year, the town council agreed to invite him to act as the assistant of John Knox at St. Giles. This was at the request of Knox himself, who had been hitherto unassisted, except by his reader John Cairns. In July of 1562 the General Assembly approved of the transla­ tion, but it does not appear to have been finally carried out until the following year. In the High Kirk, and under the influence of the great reformer, Craig soon recovered the vigorous use of his mother tongue, and the boldness of his speech in inveighing against the courtiers elicited the approbation of his colleague, who quotes from a sermon of that ‘ worthy servant of God ’ some passages which especially excited the wrath of Secretary Maitland. 1 Tytler’s Life of Sir Thomas Craig, pp. 22, 29, JOHN CRAIG 287 In June 1564 there took place a remarkable con­ ference, which was held between certain deputies from the General Assembly on the one hand and the ministers of the Crown on the other. The special object of Mait­ land, the proposer of the conference, was to restrain the licence of preachers in dealing with the conduct of the queen, but the general question of the amount of obedience due from subjects to their sovereigns was brought into free discussion. Knox and Maitland were the principal speakers, and the argument was conducted with admirable skill on both sides. Knox forced Maitland to admit that if the queen were to become a persecutor, he would be ready to adopt the doctrine of his opponent; but ‘ the question before us,’ he insisted, 4 is, whether we may or may not suppress the queen’s mass.’ ‘ Idolatry,’ answered Knox, * ought not only to be suppressed, but the idolater ought to die the death.’ ‘ I know,’ replied Maitland, ‘ that the idolater ought to die, but by whom ? ’ ‘ By the people,’ insisted Knox. Finally, after a lengthy debate, the opinions of all present were challenged in turn. Douglas, the rector of the university of St. Andrews, with whom agreed Wynram, the superintendent of Fife, took the more moderate side. ‘ If the queen,’ said Douglas, ‘ oppose herself to our religion, which is the only true religion, the nobility and states of the realm professing the same may justly oppose themselves to her. As concerning the mass, I know it is idolatry, yet I am not resolved whether that by violence we may take it from her.’ Others voted more decidedly, that ‘ as the mass is an abominable idolatry, so ought it to be repressed, and that by so doing men did no more wrong to the queen’s Majesty than those who should by force take from her a poisoned cup, when she was going to drink it.’ The question in dispute is one of particular interest, as it presents the single point of contact between the principles of the extreme presbyterian party and those of the extreme partisans of the pope. Cardinal Allen, in maintaining that heretical sovereigns are deprived of their dominions by the law of Christendom ipso facto, did 288 JOHN CRAIG not forget to support the papal pretensions by those of Knox. It is instructive to note that the passages from the Old Testament, used by the cardinal to show that in the deposition of lawfully created kings God made use of the ministry of priests and prophets, are just those which were brought forward by the Reformer in this famous conference.1 Craig does not seem to have expressed any opinion at the conference upon the lawfulness of tolerating the queen’s mass, but the judgment which he delivered upon the general question, grounded as it was rather upon common political principles than upon religious dogma, has been thought worthy of record by historians.2 41 was,’ he said, 4 in the university of Bononia in the year of our Lord 1553, where in the place of the Black Friars of the same town, I saw this conclusion following set forth in their General Assembly, reasoned and determined: 44 Principes omnes, tam supremi quam inferiores, possunt et debent reformari vel deponi, per eos per quos eliguntur, confirmantur vel admittuntur ad officium, quoties a fide prsestita subditis per juramentum deficiunt. Quoniam relatio juramenti subditorum et principum mutua est, et utrinque aequo jure servanda et reformanda, juxta legem et conditionem juramenti ab utraque parte facti.” That is, 44 All rulers, be they supreme or be they inferior, may and ought to be reformed and deposed by those by whom they are chosen, confirmed or admitted to their office, as oft as they break their promise made by oath to their subjects; because the prince is no less bound to subjects than subjects are to princes. And therefore ought it to be keeped and reformed equally according to the law and condition of the oath, which is made of either partie.” This proposition, my lords, I heard sustained and con­ cluded, as I have said, in a most notable auditory. The sustainer was a learned man, Thomas de Finola, rector of the university, a famous man in that country. Magis- ter Vincentius de Placentia affirmed the assertion to be most true and certain, agreeable both with the law of

1 Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholiques (1584), pp. 79, 89 seq. 2 Laing’s Knox, vol. ii. p. 456 ; Calderwood, vol. ii. p. 277 ; cf. Hill Burton’s History of Scotland (ed. 1873), vol. iv. p. 80. JOHN CRAIG 289 God and man. The occasion of the disputation was a certain disorder and tyranny attempted by the popes governours, who began to make innovations in the country against the laws formerly established, alleging themselves not to be subject to such laws, by reason that they were not constituted of the people but by the pope, who was king of that country; and therefore that having full commission and authority from the pope, they might alter and change statutes and ordinances of the country without all consent of the people. Against this their usurped tyranny the learned and the people opposed themselves openly. When all the reasons which the pope’s governours did allege were heard and con­ futed, the pope himself was fain to take up the controversy, and to promise that he not only should keep the liberty of the people, but also that he should neither abrogate any law or statute, nor make any new law without their own consent. Therefore, my vote and conscience is that princes are not only bound to keep laws and promises to their subjects, but also that if they fail, they may be justly deposed; for the band betwixt the prince and the people is reciproce.’ Here, writes Knox, ‘ a clawback of the corrupt court ’ interposed : ‘ Ye tell us what was done in Bononia. W e are in a kingdom, they are in a commonwealth.’ To which Craig replied, ‘ that in a kingdom no less care should be taken to prevent the violation of the law than in a commonwealth, and the more so, for the tyranny of monarchs is more hurtful to the subjects than the mis- government of magistrates, who are changed from year to year.’ The meeting broke up without arriving at any practical result. Knox, who reports the proceedings at length in his History, candidly admits that ‘ after this time the ministers who were called precise were holden by the courtiers as monsters.’ Advancing age and altered circumstances may have had, at a later period, a modifying influence upon the opinions entertained by Craig on the relations of subjects to their rulers, but as long, at least, as he was within range of the influence of Knox, the two men acted in the closest alliance. The suspicion which attaches to Knox 290 JOHN CRAIG of a knowledge and approval of the plot to assassinate David Riccio lies equally against his colleague. Their names appear together at the bottom of the list of 4 such as were at the death of Davy and privy thereto,’ sent by the Earl of Bedford and Randolph to Cecil, March 21, 1566, twelve days after the murder took place. Cecil’s correspondents showed themselves intimately acquainted with the whole conspiracy, and were by no means hostile witnesses against the ‘ preachers’ whom they implicate in it. The documents bearing on the matter are given by Tytler.1 All the arguments which, in the belief of that historian, go to confirm the evidence of the list referred to, may not appear equally cogent to others. It does not follow, because the assassins were for the most part intimate friends of Knox, and not accustomed to act except under his guidance, that they would have consulted him upon this delicate point. Their feeling may have been similar to that of the Nuncio of Paris who, in an analogous case, when announcing to the Cardinal of Como the plan of the Guises for the assas­ sination of Elizabeth, writes that he will not tell it to Gregory x i i i ., for though he believed ‘ the Pope would be glad that God should punish in any way whatever that enemy of His, still it would be unfitting that His Vicar should procure it by these means.’ 2 The inference which is drawn from the hurried flight of Knox upon the failure of the intended issue of the plot, may also be pressed too far in proof of his connection with it. But inasmuch as, while Knox was in hiding, his colleague remained at his post, the fact must be allowed to tell in favour of Craig’s courage, if not of his innocence.8 On the worst supposition it is not to be thought that these men would have acted against their consciences. If their standard of morality was low, their conduct gave proof of their religious earnestness. ‘ The slaughter of that villain Davie ’ was in their eyes doubtless ‘ a just

1 Vol. vii. pp. 353-362. 2 Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, London, 1882, p. xlvii. 3 That he braved some danger in Edinburgh is evident from a letter of Sir John Forster, who writes to Cecil that on the 8th of May 1566, a soldier of the Queen of Scots struck at Craig with his dagger as he was sitting in the church.— Cal. State Papers, Foreign Series, 1566-8, No. 385. JOHN CRAIG 291 act and worthy of all praise.’ 1 He was doing his worst to set up again an 4 idolatrous worship,’ far more intoler­ able to them than any mere political tyranny. It was the duty of the magistrate, so they thought, to put to death such an enemy of the truth and destroyer of souls, and if the offender could not be reached by the ordinary processes of law, the duty of executing the divine command might fall upon any individual who possessed the oppor­ tunity and the power. If it is an exaggeration to say that similar views were universally prevalent at the time, they were at least entertained mutatis mutandis by high authorities of the most opposite religious creeds. In the spring of 1567 Craig became involved in a contest with Mary and Bothwell, which added greatly to his renown. Knox had obtained six months’ leave of absence in England, and Craig was consequently left the only parochial minister in Edinburgh. Darnley had been slain on the 9th of February. Shortly afterwards Mary consented to marry Bothwell, who thereupon obtained a divorce from his wife (May 7), and at once took steps for the celebration of his marriage with the queen. Mr. Thomas Hepburn called upon Craig in the queen’s name to publish the banns. The minister, on the ground of the common rumour that the queen was under restraint, demanded to see her Majesty’s handwriting. On the morrow therefore Sir John Bellenden, the Justice-Clerk, brought a letter,. signed by Mary, declaring ‘ she was neither ravished nor yet retained in captivity.’ Craig however insisted that such a marriage could only be solemnised in defiance of the laws of the General Assembly, that he could neither perform the ceremony nor approve of it, but he was ready to give his reasons either to the parties themselves, if they would hear him, or to the Kirk. After much consultation he was sum­ moned before Bothwell and the Council. He has left on record a full account of the transaction in his Expur­ gation, entered among the acts of the General Assembly.2 ‘ I laid to his charge (wrote Craig) the law of adultery, the law of ravishing, the suspicion of collusion betwixt

1 Laing’s Knox, vol. i. p. 236. 2 Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 115; Calderwood, vol. ii. p. 394. 292 JOHN CRAIG him and his wife, the sudden divorcement and pro­ claiming within the space of four days, and last, the suspicion of the king’s death, which her marriage would confirm. But he answered nothing to my satisfaction, wherefore, after many exhortations, I protested that I could but declare my mind publicly to the kirk. There­ fore upon Sunday, after I had declared what they had done, and how they would proceed whether we would or not, I took heaven and earth to witness that I abhorred and detested that marriage, because it was odious and slanderous to the world; and seeing that the best part of the realm did approve it, either by flattery or by their silence, I desired the faithful to pray earnestly that God would turn it to the comfort of this realm.’ Upon the Tuesday following he was again called before the Council, and accused of passing beyond the bounds of his commission, but the reprimand had no effect upon the intrepid minister, who on Wednesday once more accompanied the proclamation with his indignant protest. The marriage took place on the 15th May, and was blessed by Adam Bothwell, the bishop of Orkney, who had joined the Reformed Church. ‘ If there is a good work to be done,’ remarks Knox,1 4 a bishop must do it. Here mark the difference betwixt this worthy minister, Mr. Craig, and this base bishop.’ In the General Assembly, held on 25th December following, the bishop was for this and other faults suspended. Even Craig had been by some blamed for too great compliance, but after hearing his defence, the Assembly ordered it to be in­ serted in their minutes, to ‘ shew all persons hereafter Mr. Craig’s good judgment and proceedings in that business.* During the regency of Murray Craig took an active part in settling the affairs of the Church. But the civil war which followed the assassination of the regent was a trying time for an Edinburgh minister. Kirkaldy of Grange held the castle and town for the queen, while Knox thundered at him from the pulpit of St. Giles. On May 8, 1571, the Reformer, being at last persuaded by Craig and his friends that if violence were offered to him, 4 the blood which might be shed in his defence would 1 Hist, of the Reformation, ed. Laing, vol. ii. p. 555. JOHN CRAIG 293 be required by God at his hands/ consented to leave the city, and betook himself to St. Andrews. Craig had himself risked the anger of Kirkaldy by refusing to read from the pulpit a written message sent by him in rebuke of Knox, but he was generally less aggressive in speech, and more inclined to seek peace in compromise, than his companion. He therefore was able to continue his ministry without fear. His conciliatory disposition even drew upon him the censures of his own party. On Sunday, May 13, he preached a sermon in which ‘ he lamented there was no neutral man to make agreement betwixt the two parties, seeing whatsoever party shall be overthrown, the country shall be brought to ruin. . . . By such speeches (says Calderwood) he offended many, because he made the cause of both parties alike.’ 1 At the same time the Convention of the Kirk was being held at Leith, and at his suggestion a deputation was appointed to wait upon the queen’s friends at the castle, with a view of coming to some terms of peace. The three deputies named were Craig, Wynram, and Andrew Hay. An account of the conference which they held with Maitland, Sir James Balfour, Kirkaldy, and the Duke of Chatelherault, is given in Bannatyne’s Memorials (pp. 125-132), apparently from a narrative by Craig himself. It presents some striking contrasts to the dis­ cussion which took place in 1564. The course of events has reversed the political positions of the chief speakers. Craig is now on the side of constituted authority, while Maitland is called upon to defend what his opponent has ground for stigmatising as rebellion. The minister, therefore, in meeting the charge of inconsistency, is careful to draw a distinction between matters of religious and civil policy. ‘ If a wicked religion enters in (he argues), how long soever it hath continued, or by what­ soever authority it hath been established, it ought incon­ tinently to be rejected, but it is otherwise in the civil polity. For though the established authority of kings and princes be established (as he seems to think it generally is) by violence and tyranny, yet once estab- 1 Vol. iii. p. 76. 294 JOHN CRAIG lished, it ought to be obeyed, much more so when the ground of that authority is lawful, reasonable, and godly.’ He pressed his adversaries in turn with their incon­ sistency, seeing that they had all been the chief instruments in setting up that authority which they now rejected, and intimated in very plain terms that those who were there present were creating disturbances in the state merely ‘ to cloak cruel murders,’ and to escape punishment for their complicity in the death of Darnley. There was apparently something in Craig’s character and bearing which enabled him to give utter­ ance to such blunt speeches without risk of exasperating his antagonists. On this occasion, as the conference broke up, we are told every one rose from his place with a smile. But the brethren in Edinburgh were hard to please. They probably misunderstood his peaceful in­ clinations, and judged that he ‘ sweyed over meikle to the sword-hand.’ They agreed to part; and in August 1572, before Knox’s return to Edinburgh, we find the town petitioning the General Assembly for assistance, as it was at that moment destitute of ministers.1 Craig was translated in that year to Montrose, and, after a short ministry there, he was appointed by the General Kirk to Aberdeen, August 6, 1574. A t Aberdeen Craig passed six years of incessant activity on a stipend of f 16, 13s. 4d. He was appointed commissioner for visiting the province of Aberdeen in 1575, and was employed in similar functions in 1576 and 1578.2 He was member of twelve out of thirteen Assemblies, and in that of October 1576 he was elected moderator for a second time. It was during this period that the controversy was carried on concerning the law­ fulness of the episcopal office. The question was debated in August 1575 by a committee appointed for the pur­ pose, in which Craig, with Andrew Melville and James Lawson, was to take the negative side. Their report in condemnation of the order was approved in all points in the following year, and in 1581 bishops were utterly abolished. Craig had also a hand in the drawing up of

1 Bannatyne’s Memorials; Calderwood, vol. iii. p. 223. 4 Fasti Eccles. S c o t Pt. vi. p. 462. JOHN CRAIG 295 the Second Book of Discipline, which was agreed upon in the Assembly of 1578. It was during his ministry here that he prepared his first or longer Catechism, as in the preface to the work he reminds 4 the Professovres of Christis Evangell at Newe Abirdene ’ that it was for their sake chiefly that he 4 toke paines first to gather this breife summe,’ and he now (July 1581) in setting it out and making it common to others, recommends the same to them again in special as a token of his goodwill, and a memorial of his doctrine and earnest labours bestowed upon them for the space of six years. In the fortieth Assembly, held at Edinburgh, July 7, 1579, among certain Articles presented to the king was a petition that, as 4 his Highness’ house is too great a charge for any one man, his Majesty would be pleased to nominate any one of the best-gifted in the kingdom to be adjoined colleague to Mr. John Duncanson,’ and in the following year, July 12, it appears that 4 the king by his letters nominates Mr. John Craig to be his minister, for which the Assembly blessed the Lord, and praised the king for his zeal.’ 1 Meanwhile, in view of his appointment as Royal Chaplain, Craig had left Aberdeen, September 14, 1579, 4 with his wife, barnis and haill hoissell.’ 2 Craig had not long entered upon his new office, when the country was suddenly and seriously alarmed by the discovery of certain intrigues of the papal party which threatened the security of the reformed kirk and the peace of the kingdom. TJie Duke of Lennox, who was in league with the Guises and the pope, and in whom the Catholics put the greatest reliance, had recently come into Scotland, and was gaining considerable influence over the young king. It was even believed that a number of men, Catholics at heart, had received dispensations from the pope to simulate Protestantism, to frequent the church services and receive *the sacrament according to the re­ formed rites, in order the more secretly to carry out their designs. That some extraordinary efforts were being made on the part of Rome to recover her lost ground, 1 Row, pp. 67, 68. 2 Fasti Eccles. Scot., Pt. vi. p. 462. 296 JOHN CRAIG both in England and Scotland, was evident, and, to meet the insidious form in which they appeared, Craig, at the suggestion • of the king, drew up ‘ Ane short and generall Confession of the true Christian Fayth and religion according to Godis worde and Actis of our Parlamentis.’ This powerful and indignant pro­ test against every doctrine, rite, and ceremony then considered as distinctive of the Roman Church, is per­ haps the most remarkable and characteristic document which ever emanated from the church of Scotland. This 4 Kings Confession,’ or National Covenant as it was after­ wards called, was signed by James and his household, January 28, 1580-1.1 Underneath the royal signature, at the top of the column on the left hand, stands that of John Craig. At the head of the central column of names is the signature of the false Duke of Lennox himself. As 4 a touchstone to try and discern Papists from Protes­ tants ’ it ought hardly to have been unsuccessful. It is difficult to understand how such a paper could have been signed by any one with the slightest inclination towards or respect for Roman Catholic teaching. On the 2nd of March, in the same year, the king charged ‘ all Commissioners and ministers to crave the same Confession of their parishioners, and to proceed against the refusers according to our laws and order of the kirk, etc/ In 1585 it was ordained that all persons graduating at a university should subscribe it. A copy of the Confession (with the omission of some sentences) prefixed to the Book of Laureations for that purpose, is still preserved at the college in Edinburgh, and to John Craig was accorded the honour of again signing his name at the top of the list.2 From time to time this Confession, says Row, ‘ in days of espyed defection was renewed, the Kirk acknow­ ledging that to be the principall mean, by the blessing of God, for the preventing of and reclameing from apostasie and backslyding.’ 3 It was again signed by the

1 A facsimile of the original with its signatures is given in the National Manuscripts of Scotland, vol. iii. 2 A copy of this signature is given on page 304. 3 Historic of the Kirk, p. 78. JOHN CRAIG 297 king and his household in February 1587-8; it was solemnly renewed by all sorts of persons in the year 1590 by a new ordinance of Council, at the desire of the General Assembly, and once more in 1595. It formed the basis of the National Covenant of 1638, when to the original text was added an abjuration of episco­ pacy, and a recital of all the Acts of Parliament passed in favour of the Reformation, and as thus embodied it was subscribed by King Charles it. at Speymouth, June 23, 1650, and at Scone, Jan. 1, 1651. In October 1581 Craig was once more elected moderator of the Assembly. Meanwhile the threatened interference of the Catholic powers in favour of Mary and the old religion had assumed a more serious aspect. The bold counter-move made by the Earl of Gowrie and his associates in seizing the person of the king, in order to place him beyond the reach of Lennox and Arran, was loudly applauded by the General Assembly; and Craig, with two other ministers, was commissioned to intimate their approbation of the proceeding, and to require from the king his own judgment upon the matter.1 Craig, moreover, made use of his opportunity, as the king’s minister, to read the royal prisoner some severe lessons from the pulpit. He rebuked him so sharply (September 19, 1582) for having issued a proclamation which was considered offensive to the clergy, that the king wept, and complained that this might at least have been said to him in private.2 When James, in June 1583, recovered his liberty, and the Raid of Ruthven was declared to have been treasonable, Melville, with many ministers and noblemen who had been compro­ mised, fled into England. Craig as usual did not stir. In the Parliament of May 1584 James had his revenge for the raid by the passing of the ‘ Black Acts,’ in which episcopacy was virtually restored, and the royal authority declared supreme in all causes and over all persons. The acts were a sore trial to Craig. He resolutely denounced them in his sermons, and was in consequence on the 1 Spottiswoode, vol. ii. p. 293. 2 Calderwood, vol. iii. p. 670. 298 JOHN CRAIG 24th of August summoned, with some of his brethren, before the council, to answer for his conduct. There was a stormy scene. Arran asked, how dare they find fault with the acts of Parliament. ‘ W e do and shall find fault (said Craig) with everything that is repugnant to the word of God.’ Arran in a rage sprang to his feet, and swore he would shave their heads and pare their nails, and make an example of them. They were charged to appear again before the king and council at Falkland on the 4th of September. They obeyed, and, as Calder- wood relates,1 ‘ there was some hot conference betwixt Mr. Craig and the bishop of St. Andrews in the king’s presence.’ Arran gave utterance to more ‘ rough speeches,’ and on Craig reminding him that ‘ there were men set up higher than he that have been brought low,’ answered derisively that he would make of ‘ a false friar a true prophet,’ and, falling on his knees, in childish mockery cried, ‘ See how I am humbled.’ ‘ Well, well,’ said Craig, ‘ mock on as you please. God sees, and will require it at your hands that you thus trouble his church unless you repent.’ So Hume of Godscroft reports the minister’s speech.2 Calderwood puts into his mouth words which may be taken as a prophecy, that Arran should one day ‘ be cast down from the high horse of his pride,’ and the historian thinks he finds their fulfilment in the fact that a few years later the earl was thrown from his horse and slain by James Douglas of Parkhead, and his body eaten by dogs. Further pressure was now put upon the clergy. Craig was interdicted from preaching, and, as two of the ordinary ministers of Edinburgh had fled the country, and the third had been removed elsewhere, the city was for some weeks without a preacher. In August all ministers had been ordered by Parliament to sign an act of submission to the late ordinances, and to promise obedience to the bishops appointed by the crown, under pain of losing their benefices.8 The threat was not an idle one, and several ministers who refused subscription

1 Vol. iv. p. 198. 2 History of the House of Douglas and Angus, vol. ii. p. 337. 3 Grub’s Eccles. Hist., vol. ii. p. 235. JOHN CRAIG 299 were deprived of their stipends. The king further de­ clared that they should be banished from the country.1 A t this crisis Craig unexpectedly intervened as the leader and spokesman of a moderate party holding an intermediate position between the favourers of episcopacy on the one hand and the extreme presbyterians, led by Melville, on the other.2 It had been suggested by some that the bond might be signed with a safe conscience if a clause were inserted, ‘ as far as the word of God per­ mits.’ Arran had contemptuously rejected the proposed compromise, but the king, under the influence of Craig, was less unmanageable. A paper was drawn up and presented to James by nine members, including Craig, who is said to have been its author, in which, while expressing the most affectionate loyalty to the king, they respectfully urge their objections to the acts in question, but offer to subscribe a general obedience to the laws with the conditional clause above mentioned. The king accepted the olive branch, and accordingly about the end of December Craig and Duncanson, the two ministers of the king’s household, and John Brand, minister of Holyrood House, subscribed ; and Craig wrote a circular letter urging his brethren to do the same. In this letter he protested that, according to the understanding they had come to with the king, their subscription was not to be taken as an allowance of the Act of Parliament nor of the state of the bishops, but simply as a testimony of obedience to his Majesty, so that4 no man can refuse the same who loveth God or the quietness of the kirk or commonweal.’ The king added a postscript, declaring that the letter was written with his knowledge. Craig’s example was immediately followed by Erskine of Dun, who used his great influence in the north on the side of his old friend, and finally by a large number of ministers. This conciliatory action was so far successful, that within a short time subscription was no longer in­ sisted upon, and Melville and the other exiles were able to return to their country. The conduct of Craig, which lays him open to the charge of vacillation and weakness, 1 Calderwood, vol. iv. p. 211. 2 Register of the Privy Council, vol. iv. p, 37— note by Professor Masson. 300 JOHN CRAIG naturally excited the indignation of many of his contem­ poraries. It is said that his spirit was broken by the threats held over him, but there is no appearance of his having been influenced by any meaner motive than his habitual love of peace and dislike of faction. Mr. Scott, the biographer of the Scottish Reformers, ventures to call the proceeding ‘the boldest action in his political conduct.’1 That a change had taken place at this time in Craig’s political views cannot, however, be doubted. Some of the exiled clergy whom he now branded with the name of ‘ peregrine ministers,’ on their return to their pulpits, inveighed against the subscribers and their leader. Stung by these reproaches, and by some words by James Gibson of Pencaitland in particular, Craig preached a famous sermon before the Parliament at Linlithgow in justi­ fication of the course he had adopted. Taking for his text the verse of the 82nd Psalm, ‘ God sitteth among the assembly of the gods,’ he apparently unsaid all that he had learnt at Bologna and upheld at the conference with Maitland thirty years before. The sermon is re­ markable as having been the subject of an exceedingly interesting discussion between the Earl of Angus, one of the refugee lords, and David Hume of Godscroft, who reports the argument, in which he took a very able part, at some length in his History of the House of Douglas and Angus.2 Hume takes the conclusion of the sermon to be in short ‘ Obedience to Tyrants, Impunity to Tyrants ’ ; and from his analysis we learn that Craig inferred from the examples of Scripture, that, ‘ as the people of God are commanded to obey Nebuchadnezzar who was a tyrant, therefore all tyrants should be obeyed ; that as David did not slay Saul, therefore no man may put him out, though his tyranny be never so great.’ Neither passive obedience nor the divine right of kings was a doctrine of the minister of St. Giles in 1564.3

1 Edinburgh Christian Instructor, vol. iii. p. 223. 2 Vol. ii. p. 383 seq. ; also Calderwood, vol. iv. p. 466. 3 Craig and Duncanson have been accused (Stephen’s History of the Church of Scotland) of disobedience to the king’s command that prayers should be publicly offered for the preservation of his mother. This is a mistake. Spottis- woode distinctly states that the king’s ministers and David Lyndsay of Leith ‘ gave obedience/ Compare M'Crie’s Melville, p. 131. JOHN CRAIG 301

The remainder of Craigs life was passed undisturbed by ecclesiastical or political strife. His name still fre­ quently occurs in the minutes of the General Assembly, and at its request he composed in 1591 the Form of Examination before Communion, already referred to, which was in use in all schools and families till 1648, when it was superseded by the Westminster Catedhisms. To the same year belongs an incident related by Calder- wood, which is characteristic both of the king and his minister. The failure of the attack made upon Holyrood House by Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, was the subject of a sermon preached by Craig before the king on December 29, in which, referring to a number of murderous outrages which had recently been allowed to go unpunished, he reminded his Majesty that as he 4 had lightly regarded the many bloody shirts presented to him by his subjects craving justice, so God in his providence had made a noise of crying and fore - hammers to come to his own doors.’ The king who was ruffled at this frankness of speech, addressed the congregation and said, that4 if he had thought his fee’d servant would have dealt after that manner with him, he would not have suffered him so long in his house.’ 1 Two years later, April 24,1593, we find James desiring the General Assembly to nominate 4 six of the discreetest of the ministry, that he might make choice of two of them to serve in his house, in respect of Mr. Craig his decrepit age.’ No action, however, seems to have been taken in the matter at this time, and in 1594 the old man was still able to take an active part in a committee of the General Assembly.2 In June 1595, the king sent another message, that 4 as Mr. John Craig is awaiting what hour it shall please God to call him and is altogether unable to serve any longer, and his Majesty mindeth to place John Duncanson with the prince, therefore his Highness desires an ordinance to be made, granting him any two ministers he shall choose.’ 3 But nevertheless Craig nominally retained his office until his death, which took 1 Calderwood, vol. v. p. 321. There had been a procession of men exposing the bloody shirts of the victims through the streets of the city, ibid. p. 256. 2 Calderwood, vol. v. p. 321. 8 Ibid. p. 368. 302 JOHN CRAIG place peaceably in the eighty-ninth year of his age, at Edinburgh, on the 12th of December 1600. During the last five years he seems to have lived privately at home, taking no part in public services.1 Spottiswoode, the historian, was appointed one of his immediate successors as minister to the king’s household in the following year. The Testament of John Craig, made 17th May 1595, is still extant among the Commissary Records of Edinburgh. The inventory of his effects amounts to £222, 13s. 4d., and the debts owing to him at the time of his death to £1100. He nominates his wife, Marion Smaill, and his son William, his sole executors, and enjoins them in the administration of the trust to seek the advice of Mr. Thomas Craig, Advocate.2 He requests his ‘ haill bairnes’ to remain in household with their mother till the time of their marriage ‘ with parties honest,’ and with their mother’s consent. He leaves all his books to his son William, and 100 merks to the Hospital of Edinburgh.8 The date of his marriage has not been ascertained nor the number of his children, but, as has been seen, he left Aberdeen at the end of 1579 with ‘ wife and bairns.’ The baptism of William is entered under date of October 9, 1575, in the Registry of Births at Aberdeen, now in the Register House, Edinburgh. According to Calderwood, ‘ Mr. John Craig’s son, a young boy,’ took part in the pageant prepared for the entertainment of Anne of Denmark, on her entry into Edinburgh on the 19th of May 1590, and ‘ made a short oration ’ to her Majesty. This is, no doubt, William himself, 6 a very able and gracious boy,’ says Crawford, who took his degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1593, and whose name already appears under the date 1587 among the signatures attached to the copy of the King’s Confession preserved at the college. He was appointed professor of philosophy in 1599, and in the following year, that of his father’s death, he resigned his office and went into France, where he became professor of divinity at Saumur. After a few 1 Spottiswoode, vol iii. p. 94. M'Crie’s Melville, vol. ii. p. 223. 2 Sir Thomas died 26 Feb. 1608, in his 70th year. 3 Reg. of Testaments. Comm, of Edinb., vol. 35. The editor is indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. Thomas Dickson of the Register House.

» JOHN CRAIG 303 years he returned to Scotland and died, November 1616, ‘ much regretted,’ at his own house in Blackfriars Wynd, Edinburgh.1

The ‘ Shorte Summe’ is memorable as having been the first, or, if we include the briefer 4 Form of Examina­ tion’ by the same author, the only catechism in the vernacular of purely Scottish origin, which came into common use in the reformed kirk. Its predecessor, and the immediate successor of Archbishop Hamilton’s Roman Catholic Catechism, so called, was an English translation of Calvin’s Catechism, first printed at Geneva in 1556, and approved in the first Book of Discipline, 1560, ‘ as the most perfect that ever yet was used in the Kirk.’ But it does not appear to have been printed in Scotland till 1564, when an edition appeared at Edin­ burgh from the press of Robert Lekprevik. The next in order of time which met with any general acceptance was this catechism of John Craig. There is no record, however, of its having had the formal approval of the General Assembly such as was accorded to the little ‘ Form of Examination’ printed ten years later (between July 1591 and May 1592), after four editions of the larger work had already been published. Almost simul­ taneously with the later or shorter catechism of Craig, an English translation of the Heidelberg or Palatine Catechism was printed at Edinburgh (1591), claiming on the title-page to be ‘ Now authorized by the King’s Maiestie for the Vse of Scotland.’ Dr. Bonar, who gives it a place in his Collection, says that he has not been able to find any Act of Assembly authorising it, nor any reference to it in the history of the Church. All these were finally superseded by the Westminster Catechisms approved in 1648. In the matter of doctrine Craig’s Catechism contains nothing distinctive. Its theology is the purest Calvinism. Although in extent of matter it is considerably longer than the present ‘ Shorter Catechism,’ it is less abstruse, and its language is more simple. In form it differs from

1 Crawford, Hist, of the University, p. 39; Dalzel, Hist, of the University, vol. ii. p. 7. 304 JOHN CRAIG the Westminster Catechisms chiefly by introducing into the body of the work the so-called Apostles Creed, which is made the text of a large portion of the theological teaching. The author himself tells us that he has studied ‘ to be plaine, simple, shorte and profitabill.’ He has of set purpose ‘ abstained from all curious and hard ques­ tions,’ and has put both questions and answers into as few words as possible, ‘ for the ease of children and commoune people.’ In the opinion of competent judges the work was admirably adapted for its purpose. The edition of the ‘ Confession of Faith ’ appended to the Catechism is interesting, as, if not the first printed copy of that famous document, it was at least published by the author himself within a few months of the signing of the original.1 It differs verbally in a few instances from the original manuscript, and is rendered more em­ phatic by dividing the long enumeration of papal errors into separate clauses. The very characteristic supple­ ment added in confirmation of its principles does not appear elsewhere.

1 It may be well, however, to note a strange error in the date at the head of the Confession, which should be January 28, not 20, as printed in the text of 1581. The edition of 1597 gives ‘ 20 of June/ FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J.1

T h e very prominent part played by Father William Crichton in the papal and Spanish intrigues with the Roman Catholic party in Scotland during the reign of James vi. merits for that active Scottish Jesuit a more full and accurate biography than he has yet received. There are, no doubt, inedited materials at Stonyhurst and elsewhere which would throw new light on his adventurous career, but pending the production of any such fresh matter it can do no harm to correct certain inaccuracies and misunderstandings to which some recent historians have given currency. It is well known that this Father Crichton, who had been sent upon his first political mission into Scotland early in 1582 by the general of the society, attempted to enter Scotland again, in company with Father James Gordon, in the autumn of 1584, that he was on that occasion captured at sea by the Dutch, by them conveyed to Ostend, and thence sent back to England, where he was imprisoned in the Tower (Sept. 16). It is with regard to this capture at sea that Father Morris, S.J., the careful and conscientious historian of the Catholic Troubles, wrote in 1875,2 4 A ridiculous story was put in circulation that a letter, torn up by him and thrown away, had been blown on board ship again and pieced and read.5 In 1888 Mr. Thompson Cooper3 writes in similar terms, e A ridiculous story was circulated that some papers which he had torn in pieces had been blown on board again and pieced together, and that they were found to contain a proposal for the invasion of England by Spain and the Duke of Guise5; and for the story in question Mr. Cooper refers the reader to Tytler’s History o f Scotland.4 Thirdly, Father 1 English Historical Review, October 1893. 2 Troubles, 2nd series, p. 78. 3 Dictionary of National Biography, xiii. 93. 4 Ed. 1864, iv. 95. U 306 FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. Hunter-Blair, in a note to his translation of Bellesheim’s History o f the Catholic Church in Scotland (1889),1 faith­ fully following Mr. Cooper, writes, ‘ Tytler . . . repeats without comment an absurd story which was circulated that some papers which Father Creighton tore in pieces during the voyage were blown on board again, and when pieced together were found to contain the details of a plan for the invasion of England.’ Now even if this story were not well authenticated it is difficult to understand why it should be characterised by this consensus of grave authors as ‘ ridiculous’ or ‘ absurd.’ It is not contrary to experience that the bearer of treasonable papers should, in danger of their discovery, thus seek to destroy them, or that an attempt to throw scraps of paper over a ship s side should be unexpectedly frustrated by a puff of wind. But, in fact, Tytler’s account is founded upon the best of evidence. Walsing- ham wrote to Sir R. Sadler, 16 Sept. 1584— £ O f late one Creighton, a Scottish Jesuite, was taken by a shippe sett forth by the admiral of Zeland, and sent hither by him unto her majestie, about whom was found a very daungerous plott sett down abowt two yeares past in the Italian tongue for the invading of this realme. And although it was torne in pieces and divers parts thereof lost, yet we have gathered the sense thereof, which I send you herewith.’ 2

The torn document in question was printed for the first time in its entirety by the late Father Knox from a con­ temporary copy in the archives of the Archbishop of Westminster,3 together with the confessions relating to the matter extracted from Crichton under fear of torture in the Tower. There are other less complete copies. A portion of one, now among the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum, was printed by Strype. Another copy or abridgment in the Record Office4 is headed, ‘ These are the partes or divisions of the discours in Italian fownde upon the Scottish Jesuite taken on the seas in his way to Scotland,’ and in one place the tran-

1 Vol. iii. 337. 2 Sadler, S. P., ii. 400. 3 Letters and Memorials of Card. Allen, pp. 425-434. 4 S. P. Bom. Eliz., lxxiii. 4. FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. 307 scriber remarks,4 The pretext or cover to this preparation is set downe, but so torne and wantinge as it can not be deciphered; but, as I gesse by this place and another, should come from Spaine.’ Father Crichton admitted that the papers were delivered to him by his superior in Paris, i.e. Claude Mathieu, provincial of the society in France. All this is to be found in Father Knox’s volume, which was published in 1882, and should have made it impossible any longer to treat Tytler’s story as ridiculous. The only strange part in the whole affair is that Crichton should have found it worth while to carry about him in the autumn of 1584 a plan of campaign which had been devised two years earlier and was now practically out of date. But the fact is indisputable. Mr. Cooper states that Crichton, on being released from the Tower, in which he was confined for two years, ‘ engaged in a conspiracy to raise a rebellion in England (1586),’ and adds, ‘ His Reasons to show the Easiness o f the Enterprise are printed by Strype.’ There, however, appears no evidence of any such conspiracy on Crichton’s part at this date. The Reasons referred to forms a portion of the papers captured at sea, and is erroneously or indefinitely assigned by Strype to ‘ about this year’ (1586), instead of 4 Sept. 1584.1 Again, the dubious interpretation of an often-quoted extract from one of Crichton’s letters, apart from its context, has led certain recent historians not only to give to an episode in his career undue importance, but to convey thereby a very erroneous impression of King James’s policy at a critical moment of his reign, and to throw the history of the time into utter confusion. The passage occurs in a letter addressed by Crichton to Father Thomas Owen, 4 June 1605, and was printed as follows by Dr. Oliver2 in 1838: ‘ Our king had so great fear of the number of Catholics and the puissance of pope and Spain that he offered liberty of conscience, and sent me to Rome to deal for the pope’s favour and making of a Scottish cardinal, as I did show the king’s letters to F. Parsons.’ Dr. Oliver does not himself venture to put a precise date to this commission of Crichton, but is 1 Annals, iii. 602. 2 Biography S. J.} p. 18. 308 FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. content with the safe remark that James ‘ had actually employed him in a delicate embassy.’ Father Forbes-Leith is more definite. In his interest­ ing Narrative o f Scottish Catholics under M ary Stuart and James V I., valuable especially from its having been com piled ‘ from the original manuscripts in the secret archives of the Vatican and other collections,’ notably those of Stonyhurst, he quotes the same extract (though he makes Parsons instead of Owen to be Crichton’s correspondent), and gives to it a new and startling historic reference. Father Forbes-Leith is describing the events of 1 5 9 3 , the discovery of the ‘ Spanish Blanks,’ and the conspiracy of the three Catholic earls. He says nothing of the main part in the plot played by Crichton, or of the steps taken by the king against the noblemen and Jesuits implicated ; but, on the contrary, tells us, on the authority of his manuscripts, the following amazing story:— ‘ W ith the advice of his councillors of state James sent Father Gordon and Father Crichton secretly to Rome for the purpose of laying the whole matter before the pope, and arranging with him the means of restoring the Catholic religion in Scotland. Gordon accomplished his mission according to his instructions, and returned to Scotland in company with Father William Crichton and the pope’s legate, George Sampiretti. The last-named was the bearer of a large sum of money, which he was to give to the king of Scotland, promising him a monthly allowance of ten thousand ducats on con­ dition of his protecting the Catholics and allowing them to remain unmolested in the exercise of their faith. On 16 July 1594 the party landed at Aberdeen.’ 1 In a footnote attached to the penultimate sentence of this paragraph the author gives his authorities. He first prints the passage, already quoted from Crichton’s letter, but begins it with the words, 4 For then,’ and adds to it ‘ and prayed him ’ (i.e. Parsons) ‘ to concur at least to give some satisfaction to our king,’ which additions, together with the reference which follows, suggest that he had the whole letter before him. The note then runs on—

£ Manuscript letter of Father Crichton, S.J., to Father Parsons [«c], 4 June 1605, Stonyhurst archives, vol. “ Anglia,” A , iii. 55. 1 P. 222. FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. 309

Cf. “ Archives S. J.,” De Missione Scotica puncta quaedam notanda historiae Societatis servienda, manuscript by Father Crichton, S.J., Latin manuscript. Cf. Lord Walter Lindsay of Balgaries’s “ Account of the Present State of the Catholic Religion in the Realm of Scot­ land in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety-Four,” a very rare Spanish pamphlet in Blairs College Library.’ Mr. Cooper,1 naturally relying upon this array of authorities, quotes once more the extract in question, taking it, however, in the form given by Gordon,2 who has taken it from Oliver, and prefaces it with words borrowed from Father Forbes-Leith: ‘ With the advice of his councillors of state James sent . . . to Rome in 1592 for the purpose of arranging with the pope for the restoration of the Catholic religion in Scotland.’ The inserted date, 1592, is apparently a slip for 1593, for it was not till 2 or 3 Jan. 1593 that James got news of the discovery of the 4 Blanks ’ ; and the supposed commission to Gordon and Crichton was, according to Father Forbes- Leith, consequent upon that discovery. W e are asked, then, to believe that while James was issuing decrees of banishment against the Jesuits, and preparing to put down by force of arms the Catholic earls, he was secretly sending Crichton, whom he knew to have been the very soul of the conspiracy, to the pope with the object of ‘ restoring the Catholic religion,’ and that on the return of his emissaries with a papal legate and a large sum of money in his aid in July 1594, the ungrateful king at once sent Argyll to do battle with the insurgent Catholics; and on the duke’s discomfiture went himself, dispersed the earls, battered down their castles, and com­ pelled them to fly the country. W e may be prepared for much duplicity in James, but such conduct at this moment would need very strong evidence indeed to make it credible. Lord W . Lindsay’s story, a translation of which is printed in Narratives (p. 355), is inaccurate in many details. He, however, does not say that James wrote to the pope, but that the pope wrote to the king, exhorting

1 Dictionary of National Biography, xiii. 94. 2 Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 538. 310 FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. him to embrace the faith. Lindsay says nothing of Crichton; and the statement that the money brought over to Aberdeen by Gordon and Sampiretti in 1594 was intended for the king is a grave error; for Gordon’s formal receipt to the papal treasury1 states plainly that this money, ‘ for the levying of men against the heretics,’ was meant for the rebel earls, Huntly, Angus, and Errol. The D e Missione Scotica, which unfortunately remains unpublished, may throw light on some of the incidents of the affair. It may tell who were the other priests who accompanied Father Gordon and the nuncio, and were made prisoners at Aberdeen; but it may safely be con­ jectured that it will not confirm Father Forbes-Leith and Mr. Cooper in their main statement as to James’s negotiation with the pope, through Crichton, for the restoration of the Catholic religion, or even the making of a Scottish cardinal, in 1592-4.2 It is curious to note that Father Morris3 had also been distracted by this wander­ ing extract. Writing of the events of May 1582, he says, ‘ Father Crichton carried to Rome a letter from King James ’ ; and then follows the passage, ‘ Our king had so great fear,’ etc. If this date was a mere guess on Father Morris’s part, it was a very fair one; for at that time (May 1582), when James was a lad of fifteen, Crichton had, indeed, just returned to Paris from Scot­ land with letters from Lennox to the Duke of Guise and the Spanish agent, and, after conference with Parsons, conveyed the plans agreed upon to Rome. But when we have before us the context of Crichton’s letter to Owen, as it was printed long ago by Tierney, it becomes clear that the writer is simply referring to James’s well-known letter of 24 Sept. 1599, which Edward Drummond and apparently Crichton himself were deputed to carry to Rome. The authorship of this letter, on its publication some years later by Bellarmine, we know the king vainly attempted to deny, and charged his secretary Elphinstone, afterwards Lord Balmerino, 1 Printed in Hunter-Blair’s Bellesheim, iii. 449. 2 The alleged embassy to the pope on the part of the impostor John Ogleby of Pury, in the spring of 1596, is quite another matter. But even if it can be taken seriously it is not the affair of which Crichton speaks. 3 Troubles, ii. 18. FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. 311

with having fraudulently obtained his signature to it. In this letter James did not, of course, offer to restore the Catholic Church, but while making profession of his own Protestantism he hoped to disarm the pope’s hostility to his succession to the English crown by affecting a spirit of toleration, and proposing in his own interests that William Chisholm, the second Bishop of Vaison of that name, should be made a cardinal. But Crichton sufficiently explains the circumstances, first in this letter to Owen, and again a few years later, when he heard of the trouble in which Balmerino was involved on account of the king’s denial, in a letter to Sir A. Murray. The letters, apart from the questions of James’s secret negotiations with Rome, have a special interest from their marking the difference between the policy of Crichton and that of his brother Jesuit, Parsons. On a former occasion Crichton had remonstrated with Parsons on the mischief done by his book on the succession, and he now complains that the pope and Parsons, by not receiving favourably James’s advances, had missed a great opportunity. ‘ Now (he writes), since the Cardinal Borghese is pope, with whom Father Parsons hath great credit, it were good that he employed his credit for the reduction of our country ; but with better intelligence with us nor he had in times by-past; for, though he be of greater prudence and better discourse nor we of our nation, yet we under­ stand better the affairs of our country nor he, and some little of England. If he had rown the same course with us, as oftentimes by word and writing I did inform him, our matters of religion had been, perhaps, in better estate nor they be at this present; for I did fore­ tell him of the success which is presently in effect, and that no hope nor reason was that they could be otherways. Y et even he remained still in his own conceits, not to procure for an heretic, wherein I was with him ; nor yet to procure for the conversion of an heretic, where­ in I was against him, for then our king had so great fear of the Catholics and the puissance of pope and Spain that he offered liberty of conscience and sent me to Rome to deal for the pope’s favour and making of a Scottish cardinal, as I did show the king’s letters to Father Parsons, and prayed him to concur at the least to give some satisfaction to our king; but in vain; and I returned to Avignon with much desolation, and did tell both pope and Father Parsons that now he sought them, but being refused, the time would come that they would search him, and likewise in vain, which now [June 1605] they experiment.’ 1 1 Tierney’s Dodd, iv. 153, printed from the original at Stonyhurst. 312 FATHER WILLIAM CRICHTON, S.J. In his letter to Murray, 27 Jan. 1609, Crichton is more explicit regarding the policy and mind of the king. c I have heard with my extreme dolour the extremities to which Sir James Elphinstone, president of the session of Scotland, is reduced for the letter sent to the pope and cardinals by Mr. Edward Drummond, and specially because the president is so near to you by alliance. As touching the president’s confession to have sent the despatch to pope and cardinals with his majesty’s consent or com­ mandment, I will not mell me with that nor anything, what it may merit. But because I assisted Mr. Edward Drummond in all that negotiation (thinking it to be to the king’s weal and service), and communication of all the letters that were brought for that affair, I thought it expedient to inform you of the verity of all. There was nothing wrought in that negotiation which was not thought to be for the king’s majesty’s service, which was to procure the Bishop of Vaison’s advancement to the degree of cardinal, to the end that his majesty should have in the college of cardinals one of his true and faithfid subjects to advance his majesty's service, and dash and stop that which might be to his prejudice; and specially that they should not excommunicate his majesty, or absolve his subjects from their obedience, as there were some at that time busy to procure it. . . . It was not given to understand to the pope that the king’s majesty was in any disposition either to come [sic] or favour the Catholic religion, for the contrary was contained expressly in the letters . . . saying that albeit he remained constant in that religion in which he was nourished from the cradle, yet he would not be enemy or persecutor of the Catholics so long as they should remain faithful and obedient subjects unto him, as indeed his majesty has ever done until the horrible and barbarous conspiracy of the Gunpowder. For in Scotland to them of our order who are holden the most odious, and persecuted to the death by the ministers, he did never use more rigour nor to banish them out of the country, and constrain their parents to oblige them under pain to cause them to depart.’ 1 In justice to King James, as well as to Father Crichton and that small section of his brethren who thought with him in opposition to the ultra-Spanish Jesuits, these curious letters should not have been ignored or misunderstood by the author of the Narratives o f Scottish Catholics.

1 Printed by Bottield, Original Letters, i. 180, and fully quoted by Gardiner, Hist, of England, ed. 1884, i. ROBERT BRUCE, CONSPIRATOR AND SPY1

T h e inquisitive searcher among ancient records, who wishes to get at the bottom of an historic mystery, may well complain of the absence from our biographical dictionaries of any sufficient record of the secret intelli­ gencer, the adventurer, and the spy. Any one of our countrymen who has made a name for himself has been duly commemorated, or will be so in the course of the next eight years, in the sixty or seventy volumes of the Dictionary o f National Biography. But the man whose policy it was not to be known, who worked, as it were, underground, and often concealed his very name in order the more effectually to carry out his designs, runs the risk of escaping altogether the notice of the biographical collectors. Yet such a man in his vagabond career may have done more to make history than the general who has won a great battle, or the divine who has printed tons of theology. The Book o f Dignities is an excellent guide for the identification of an ambassador, a bishop, or a cabinet minister, but where is there such a hand­ book for the use of the historical detective who is bent upon hunting down some secret agent or political rogue of the sixteenth century ? These men are the despair of the index-maker and the torment of the reader. The modern representative of the type may present the curious public with his portrait and autobiography. But the spy of the olden time flits like a ghost across the pages of our State Papers, sometimes without a name and sometimes with too many, and it is only with much pains and patience that the student can so piece together scraps of information as to give to this shadow a human shape and substance. A Scottish gentleman, who, in the reign of James vi. bore the honoured name of Robert Bruce, and the less 1 The Scotsman, April 10, 1893. 314 ROBERT BRUCE, distinguished aliases of Bartill Bailzie, Edward Foster, and perhaps Peter Nerne, may be taken as a specimen of the class. In his own day he baffled the police, and in modern times has given some trouble to the editors of State Papers. He is described in the Registers of the Privy Council (vol. v. 53) as ‘ Mr. Robert Bruce, son of the late Nianiane Bruce, brother of the Laird of Bynny.’ He was the secretary of James Beaton, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and became the trusted agent of the Catholic nobles in Scotland, the Jesuits, and the King of Spain in their conspiracies for or against King James. Professor Masson, who introduces this Robert Bruce to us in a note to the Privy Council Registers (vol. iv. 430), warns the reader, with characteristic exactness and courtesy, not to confuse the Spanish agent with the well-known, zealous, and highly respectable minister, at one time Moderator of the General Assembly, and by turns the counsellor and opponent of the king. But the warning came too late for Mr. Thorpe, the editor of the Calendar o f State Papers fo r Scotland, who, in the index under the head of ‘ Bruce (Robert),’ had set down twenty-one references, of which seven belong to the Presbyterian leader and fourteen to this emissary from the opposite camp. W e first hear of this latter gentleman in February 1579, when he was in Scotland in the company of Lord Seton, who, on his account, got into trouble. Bruce was proclaimed a rebel, and put to the horn. He may be the Robert Bruce who was amongst the first scholars of the Scots College at Douai (1581), and who is said to have ‘ followed the Court.’ In January 1585, Morgan writes to the Queen of Scots saying that Bruce ‘ was being drawn from his studies by my Lord of Glasgow to serve her Majesty.’ When the great enter­ prise of Spain, the pope, and the Guises appeared to be ripe for execution, Bruce entered Scotland, bringing with him a sum of money from Flanders and two Jesuits, Edmund Hay and John Dury, in the disguise of his domestic servants. Professor Masson, on the authority of contemporary reports, styles Bruce himself a Jesuit, and Father Forbes-Leith, in his Narratives o f Scottish Catholics, describes him as a secular priest, but he certainly CONSPIRATOR AND SPY 315 was not a Jesuit, and in all probability was never a priest. In the spring of 1586 he was dispatched by the Catholic nobles of Scotland on an important mission to the King of Spain. He carried with him letters of recommenda­ tion from Huntly, Morton, and Lord Claud Hamilton, by whom he is described as a Scottish gentleman of great constancy in his faith, devoted to ‘ our Queen and her son the King,’ and expert in the conduct of affairs; and King Philip is entreated to confide in their envoy as completely as he would in these noblemen themselves if present. Bruce conducted himself in Spain with dis­ cretion, and forcibly urged the petition of his chiefs for a subsidy of men and money. The king thought him too sanguine in his hope of reducing Scotland to the Catholic Church, but was evidently impressed with his ability and good faith, and sent him on to Mendoza, his ambassador at Paris, and thence to the Duke of Guise. The explanation and defence of the plan of invading England through Scotland now fell largely upon Bruce, who meanwhile kept up with the Jesuits and his noble friends in Scotland an active correspondence, some details of which may be found in Teulet. In 1588 Bruce was back in his own country, The failure of the Armada was angrily attributed by the Scottish Catholics to the selfishness and conceit, the ‘ unchristian envy,’ of their English co-religionists, who had succeeded in persuading Philip to make his attempt from the south rather than from the north. The Scottish earls were now insisting that their original proposal of an attack on England through Scotland should be given a fair trial. Bruce was once more to the front. Colonel Sempill, the busy Spanish agent then in Edinburgh, had been captured and imprisoned. On his romantic escape from a house seven storeys high, by means of a cord conveyed to him by his wife in a pie, he left instructions that the correspondence with Spain should be conducted in his absence by Robert Bruce and Graham of Fintry. Bruce was now an impor­ tant personage. John Chisholm brought over to him 10,000 crowns to distribute among the Catholic leaders, apparently very much at his own discretion. Earl Both- well, it is said, came to him with an offer to join the 316 ROBERT BRUCE,

Catholic party if they would only assure him of the possession of the two Abbeys of Coldingham and Kelso, which he then held. Meanwhile Pringle, Sempill’s servant, was seized in England with ‘ two packets of letters closed up in leather.’ These were found to be treasonable letters, written by Bruce and others, which, by the direction of Huntly, Pringle had obtained from Bruce, then lodging 4 in the house of one John Lorie in the West Port,’ with orders to deliver them to the Duke of Parma. It was, as Professon Masson remarks, a 4 terrible day in Scotland ’ when the intercepted packet, accompanied with a characteristically sharp letter from the Queen of England, was put into the hand of James. There was consternation everywhere. The King was stirred up to take some feeble measures against the con­ spirators, and thereupon Bruce incited Huntly to the open insurrection which terminated in the fiasco of the 4 Brig of Dee.’ All this time Bruce was undoubtedly, as the English Jesuit, Henry Walpole, confessed under cruel torture, ‘ a principal man in Scottish affairs.’ But presently a change took place. The excitement of 1589 was followed by an unusual calm during the seven months’ absence of the king in Norway and Denmark, October 1589 to May 1590, when the country seemed occupied with little else but experiments in witchcraft. In the summer of 1592 Huntly was at his old tricks again, and then followed, in December, the famous dis­ covery of the 4 Spanish Blanks.’ Bruce, under the name of Bartill Bailzie, does indeed appear on the edge of this mysterious aflfair, though for some time he had been com­ paratively quiet. But, in August of that same year— i.e. while the plot was hatching— we find Bowes, the English agent at the Scottish Court, sending to Lord Burghley the astonishing news that Robert Bruce, 4 servant of the Bishop of Glasgow,’ had written from Calais under the alias of Edw. Foster, offering to 4 dis­ cover the practises of Spain.’ On November 17, Bruce, still apparently acting for his old friends, arrived with money from Flanders. Then, on December 8, there follows the still more astonishing act of King James, granting remission to Rob. Bruce, son of Ninian Bruce, CONSPIRATOR AND SPY 317 for high treason, negotiation with foreign princes and Jesuits for the alteration of religion and distribution of money from Spain. Bruces name occurs later in the Act of Abolition, by which pardon under conditions was granted to the earls, certain Jesuits, and others, dated November 26, 1593. But this earlier document of December 8, 1592 (which, by the way, is not now found among the registers of the Privy Council) is of quite another character; and Bowes, who forwards it to Burghley, naturally enough calls attention to its strange form and to the complaints made about it. Had Bruce been coming to terms privately with the king? Two letters which have but recently come to light among the Hatfield Papers (vol. iii., 1892) show that Bruce, in his new character of renegade and informer, was thoroughly in earnest. He writes in cipher from Brussels, 25th May 1594 : * I have travailed of late to discredit the Jesuits in all parts where they have procured to do us harm hereto­ fore.’ He proceeds to give information as to certain emissaries from Spain about to land in the north of Scotland, and adds, ‘ Father James Gordon is arrived at Rome the 23rd April. What he hath done there since we have not had time to know yet. To serve the Queen I hazard both life, means, and honesty without obliga­ tion ; if it please her to oblige me, as I desired, Her Majesty shall perceive, by the great effect following immediately, that all has been well deserved. . . . Your servant, Robert Bruce.’ Two months later in a similar letter, dated Antwerp, July 6, he informs his corre­ spondent that 4 Fa. Gordon, Jesuit, returned here from Rome six days ago, and within two days is departed towards Calais for to embark there for Scotland . . . where he intends to land in the N. parts . . . he hath expedition from Rome and Spain, and carrieth quantity of money and letters for the Catholics in Scotland. This is est, and not only videtur. . . . He received the said money at Lisle by order of the King of Spain’s Pagador General. The sum is great. There goeth with him four other Jesuits and some secular persons by him­ self. You may understand the particulars of his negotiation. The general help is preparing with diligence.’ Ten days after this Father Gordon, as is well known, 318 ROBERT BRUCE, duly arrived with his money and friends at Aberdeen. | Bruce’s information was correct in all save one particular, f The money,4 for levying men against the heretics,’ came, ? not from Spain, but from the papal treasury, as is shown r by the Jesuits’ formal receipt for the same, printed | recently from the Vatican archives by Canon Bellesheim J| (vol. iii., p. 4 4 9 ), and the money, which fell into the hands If of Huntly, no doubt enabled him the better to equip the § horsemen and artillery with which shortly afterwards he j put to rout Argyll’s half-naked Highlanders at Glenlivet. M Such double-dealing on the part of Bruce was not p likely to very long escape the vigilance of his former | allies. In March 1 5 9 9 , Father Baldwin, S.J., writes g from Antwerp to Bruce, then at St. Omer, telling him ll of various reports in circulation against him, of his having |j 4 made submission to the King of Scotland,’ etc. Then | we have a Latin document containing heads of charges I; brought against Robert Bruce in custody at Brussels, ' with the depositions of the Jesuits, Crichton and John P Hamilton, the Earls of Errol and Huntly, George Kerr, the Earl of Westmorland, and others, and a statement of Bruce himself. A similar document in French con- ; victs the prisoner of 4 intelligence with English spies, betrayal of the cause of the Catholics, preventing the delivery o f Dumbarton Castle to the King o f Spain, corresponding with heretics, especially with Sir Robert Melville,’ etc. Strange to say, Bruce passed through this ordeal with safety to life and liberty. But he was no longer politi- j cally dangerous. He seems to have been once more in Scotland, and the date of his death is not ascertained, unless, indeed, he was the 4 Bruce hanged by the Marquis j of Huntly ’ in August 1 6 0 0 .1 j It is probable that, although, as Bruce’s language too plainly shows, he sold his information to the Queen of j England, his motives were not entirely mercenary or without honest ground. His eyes may have been opened, ! as was the case with others of his party, to the selfish and ambitious designs of the King of Spain. Since the

1 See below, p. 330. Father Pollen tells me that he died of the plague in Paris in 1602. CONSPIRATOR AND SPY 319 execution of Queen Mary it was becoming clearer every year that Philip was aiming at the succession to the English throne, not for James, but for himself or the Infanta. Bruce may have on this ground quarrelled with Parsons, Holt, and the Jesuits of the ultra-Spanish faction, and, as a patriotic Scotsman, but after his own fashion, done his utmost to frustrate their schemes. He once hated England as the enemy of the Catholic cause in Scotland, and he is reported as having said that if it were not for the intermeddling of England in the affairs of Scotland, the Catholics would long ago have had James at their commandment. But when the success of Spanish intrigues meant exclusion of James from the English throne and foreign domination, the interests of Catholic patriots, English and Scottish, became identical. Bruce threw himself (as John Cecil, the English priest, a former friend of Parsons, and a Spanish trafficker in Scotland, did likewise) into the Catholic party, which, especially after 1595, daily gained strength, in favour of peace, loyalty to the English Crown, and the succession of James. Robert Bruce has, in any case, been historically ill- treated. Spottiswoode often refers to his practices, and so does, more recently, Forbes-Leith, but neither allows him a place in their indexes. The historians of the family of Bruce have passed him by, and the editors of our State Papers have not always done him justice. He deserves to be rescued from oblivion, for if his political methods were unpleasant, and his ethical standard imperfect, he was a distinct force in the movements of his time, and his career well illustrates the peculiar troubles and per­ plexities which encompassed the unfortunate Scot who wished to be at once patriotic and Catholic in the reign of James vi. COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL

THE HERO OF LIERRE1

O f the many Scots abroad in the sixteenth and seven­ teenth centuries, there are few who, in their own genera­ tion, were more famous than the soldier of fortune and political adventurer, William Sempill, who became ‘ Gentleman of the mouth ’ to his Spanish Majesty, a generous patron of the Catholic mission to his native country, and founder of the Scots College at Madrid. But, like other Scottish refugees of his time and creed, he labours biographically under a twofold misfortune. By the majority at home he is regarded as an alien of whom little notice is taken except by a few hard speeches, while to the writers of his own party he becomes a hero whose irregularities or inconsistencies, the outcome of his age and situation, must needs be toned down or kept out of sight, as if he were a subject of theological con­ troversy. The man is thus in danger of being robbed of his chief interest in the eyes of the historian. He was born, it seems, in 1546. The exact place which he holds in the family tree is doubtful. Crawfurd and Douglas ignore him altogether. His contemporary and co-religionist, George Conn, calls him a brother of the Baron Sempill, which he certainly was not. His most recent biographer makes him a son of the third ‘ Earl ’ of Sempill, who never existed. In his lifetime he was often described as uncle of the fourth lord, but more probably he was the son of David Sempill,2 who was a younger brother of the third Lord Sempill, and founder of the Sempills of Craigbet. Little, too, is known of his early youth. The pope, however, in 1627, recounting his many virtues, congratulates him on his good fortune in having been brought up at the court of

1 The Scotsman, August 10, 1896. 2 N o ; it appears he was illegitimate son of Lord Sempill.—[Note by Dr. Law.] COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL 321

Mary Stuart. It may therefore be a surprise to some readers— though it should not be— to hear of him next as a volunteer fighting in the service of the Protestant and arch-rebel Prince of Orange against the Most Catholic King of Spain. There soon follows the turning-point in the career of this valiant Scot, and the most striking event of his life, the betrayal of the town and garrison of Lierre to the Spanish forces on August 2, 1582. The incident created considerable stir, and full particulars are told in the foreign histories of the war, easily accessible to the historical student. Only within the last few years, however, has the story found its way into our literature of home growth. An anonymous writer had contributed an interesting life of Sempill, founded apparently upon the m s. records and traditions of Madrid and Valladolid, to the Catholic Directory fo r Scotland, 1873 ; and this narrative was subsequently adopted almost verbatim in the grave historical work entitled, f Narratives o f Scottish Catholics under M ary Stuart and James V I . : Now first printed from the original manuscripts in the secret archives of the Vatican, and other collections. Edited by William Forbes-Leith, S.J.,’ which was published in Edinburgh in 1885. The new facts, and the still newer interpretation of facts here brought forward with some show of historic authority, deserve diligent attention. When Mary Stuart, we are told, 4 fled into England from her rebellious subjects, he (Sempill) also forsook his native country, and, passing into Belgium, served for some time under the Prince of Orange, deceived, it would seem, by the professions of loyalty with which that prince at first strove to conceal his rebellion. In 1573 (sic) Mary Stuart, from her prison in England, was enabled through the agency of John Seaton, son of the Earl of Winton, to undeceive him, and to notify her pleasure that he should pass to the service of the King of Spain. He immediately obeyed the command of his sovereign. Through his influence three regiments of Scottish infantry and three companies of cavalry, together with the fortresses of Gueldres, Bruges, and Lierre, embraced the Spanish cause. In recompense for these services, and of his heroic defence of Lierre against the x 322 COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL

French, commanded by the Duke of Alenijon in person, the Duke of Parma offered him 70,000 ducats, but he would accept of nothing. In 1582 Colonel Sempill passed into Spain. . . .’ This picture of a simple youth beguiled into Oranges camp, until warned by Queen Mary that he was on the wrong side, it is difficult to accept. If it were possible to misunderstand the Prince’s policy in 1573, the date erroneously given, such a misunderstanding would be quite out of the question after 1581. The facts are these. Sempill, who had been one of Colonel William Stewart’s subalterns, entered Lierre, March 25, 1582, as captain of a company of Scots, the place being garrisoned by two other companies of State soldiers of the regiment of Heetvelde. The Scots had already, for the past ten years, been distinguishing themselves in the war. After the capture of Brille by the ‘ Beggars of the Sea ’ in 1572 there had been a rush of volunteers to the Low Countries. There was no Foreign Enlistment Act, and the Privy Council openly gave licences to officers for the levying of troops ‘ against the persecutors of God’s religion.’ In 1573 there were at least 1600 Scottish soldiers in Holland and Zealand. Thirteen companies under Colonel Balfour were wellnigh annihilated with the rest of the States army at the disastrous battle of Gemblours in 1578; and at Mechlin, in the same year, the Scots made themselves remarkable by their desperate fighting— some of them clad in their shirts only, and others in still lighter clothing. Catholics came with Protestants to gain a livelihood, to win fame, and to learn the art of war in the best of schools. There was not the same opening for raw recruits in the more exclusive ranks of the veterans of Spain. When in 1582 the Prince of Parma received into his camp 400 English soldiers, among them many Catholics, to serve, as he said, for decoy-birds, and in the hope of obtaining the betrayal of towns garrisoned by their countrymen, the old cavalry leader, Bernardino de Mendoza, then Ambassador at London, at once remonstrated to the King. These men, he wrote, were in heart thorough heretics, and would be sure to turn traitors again, or, if they remained, would COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL 323 only do mischief. But, says Strada, Parma’s expectations were soon justified; and this Jesuit historian proceeds to tell the story of Sempill’s betrayal of Lierre, a story which substantially agrees with that given by Meteren, and again quite recently by Anton Bergmann in his Dutch history of the town of Lierre (1873), based, it would seem, mainly upon the extremely rare contem­ porary tract, not to be found in any public library, entitled, ‘ Brief discours de la trahison advenue en la ville de Liere, en Braband, par un capitaine escossais nomm£ Guillaume Semple, qui estant illec en garnison l’a livr^e es mains de l’enemy en l’an 1582, le 2e jour d’Aoughts. Servant d’exemple et advertissement a tous ceux que veulent resister a la tyrannie Espaignolle. L ’an m d . lxxxii.’ Sempill, not long after his arrival at Lierre, probably some time in June, obtained a secret interview with Parma at Poperinghe. He told the Prince that he desired to show his devotion to the Spanish cause by some signal deed, and that he had purchased his captaincy at Lierre with the object of opening its gates to the Spaniards. He asked for no reward beyond the satisfac­ tion of accomplishing his purpose. Parma therefore put him in communication with Matthias Corvini, an old and experienced officer, with orders that troops should be detached from Louvain and Namur to aid in the enter­ prise. William Herle, writing to Lord Burghley from Antwerp on the day after the betrayal, assigns a some­ what different motive for the action. Sempill and other Scottish captains of Stewart’s regiment had complained, it is said, of the colonel’s ‘ misdemeanours,’ and could obtain no redress. This is not unlikely, as Stewart was a violent and unprincipled bully. Sempill’s soldiers, too, had been in garrison for ten weeks without pay or pro­ visions, forced to live upon roots; and when the captain complained to the Governor and Burgomaster, they showed him the gallows in the market-place, and threatened to hang him if he did not hold his mutinous tongue. It should be remembered that similar hardships had driven the Scots to mutiny just twelve months before at Vilvoorde. Smarting under these insults, Sempill is 324 COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL said to have resolved upon revenge. Be this as it may, on August 1st Sempill dined with the Governor, Adolph van Heetvelde, and, on the pretence of recovering some prisoners, obtained permission to make a reconnaissance or sortie. He was allowed thirty Scots and half a dozen States soldiers for the purpose. At seven in the evening Sempill left Lierre, marched to the Church of Heyst-op- den-Berg, there disarmed and bound the Dutch soldiers, effected a junction with the troops sent by Corvini, and at three o’clock next morning reappeared before the gates of Lierre. His brother, a lieutenant (perhaps Gilbert, who is said to have died in the wars in Flanders), had meanwhile assembled the remaining Scottish soldiers in the guardhouse, and on receiving a preconcerted signal of the Captain’s approach, requested Crieckart, the officer of the watch, to open the gates. Crieckart, suspecting no treachery, accompanied by the gatekeeper, cautiously opened the three gates, closing the first two behind him as usual, when Sempill, who seems to have been a big and powerful man, sprang forward, killed the porter, and then struck Crieckart such a blow that he fell back mortally wounded. The younger brother from within attacked the watch, and contrived to admit the Captain and the Spanish troops, who, after a brief struggle, made themselves masters of the town. For the horrors of the Spanish Fury which followed, Sempill, it may be hoped, was not responsible. On September 7th Corvini, the new Governor, departed with his soldiers and his booty, and in place of the Spaniards there came eight hundred Italians. On December 23rd the Scots finally left the city. Meanwhile Sempill had gone to Namur to receive the congratulations of Parma, who sent him into Spain with strong recommendations to the King, who, says Strada, handsomely rewarded him. It was not the policy of Parma to allow such deeds to go without rich recompense. Sempill started upon his political adventures in 1587. Philip sent him from Spain to Mendoza, who was then at Paris, but warned the Ambassador that he should treat him with great caution, for, notwithstanding his apparent loyalty, he was ‘ very Scotch.’ Mendoza was, in fact, COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL 325 somewhat prejudiced against Scotsmen on account of their leanings towards the French; nevertheless, after testing Sempill, he reported him to the King as being more trustworthy than most of his countrymen, whether of sword or gown. In August 1588 Sempill landed at Leith, and was busy with intrigues with the Catholic nobles. James had him put in prison. Huntly rescued him; again he was caught and imprisoned; and once more, by the aid of Huntly and of a lady whom Father Forbes-Leith erroneously describes as the ‘ Countess ’ of Ross, he effected an escape, of which a romantic account is given in the Narratives. The State papers of the period abound in references to the subsequent move­ ments of the Colonel, as he is now called. In 1593 he married the Dona Maria de Ledesma, daughter of Don Juan de Ledesma, a member of the Council of the Indies; and in 1598 the fourth Lord Sempill, who was then in Madrid as Ambassador of James vi., with instructions to sound the intentions of the new King, Philip in., with regard to the succession to the English crown, was courteously assisted (so he wrote to James) by 4 the crunal my cusing ’ ; while the said cousin, whose heart was apparently still in Scotland, wrote himself of ‘ the lang intension that I haif haid to die in my cuntre in yor ma’tie’s service.’ In his extreme old age the Colonel continued to show himself ‘ very Scotch.’ The pensioners of the King of Spain never found it easy to secure their pay. The English Sir William Stanley, the betrayer of Deventer, the ally of the Jesuits, and devoted servant of Spain, after repeated failures to recover his due, retired with a bitter heart to a Carthusian monastery. The Scot was more successful. He extracted from Philip in. in 1613, by way of compensation for arrears of salaries and pensions, the gift of a block of buildings called Jacomo- trezo, in Madrid, valued at 175,256 reals. Here he founded his College for the Scottish Mission, placing its future administration in the hands of the Jesuit fathers. He also exacted from Philip iv., in 1629, a grant of 1900 ducats of rent, to be paid to his executors after his death during the lifetime of any one whom he should name; 326 COLONEL WILLIAM SEMPILL and he named, accordingly, John Seton, of the Society of Jesus. The King had also bestowed upon the Colonel the title of a Prince in Italy. This Sempill left to be sold, the price to be given to the College. The deed of foundation, dated 10th May 1627, and the Colonel’s testament, dated 10th February 1633, were printed by the Maitland Club in 1834. His brother’s son, Hugh Sempill, who styled himself4 Craigbaitseus,’ entered the Jesuit noviciate at Toledo, and was for some time rector of this Scots College at Madrid, where he died in 1654. But to return to the Colonel’s military exploits, which need further elucidation. It is not clear what Father Forbes-Leith and his authorities mean by the statement that the fortresses of Gueldres and Bruges, as well as Lierre, not to speak of the regiments of infantry and squadrons of cavalry, through Sempill’s influence embraced the Spanish cause. His ‘ influence ’ at Lierre, it has been seen, was of a very material nature. Colonel Boyd may perhaps have been led by Sempill’s example, and the hope of his reward, to betray Bruges in 1584. But it is manifest that Gueldres was treacherously delivered up by Colonel Paton in 1587 from personal motives of revenge. In any case the statement as it stands is unfortunately misleading. Then, what of Sempill’s heroic defence of Lierre against the Duke of Alen^on—an incident of which there is no record in the standard histories? If these narratives are based upon inedited documents, it is a pity that the date and source of such documents are not more clearly indicated. They read like the confused reminiscences of the old soldier, distorted by the frequent repetition of his friends till the facts have become past recognition. The story of the fighting Scots in the early days of the Dutch War of Independence has not yet been written as it should be, and it certainly tells of many more noble deeds than that of the betrayal of Lierre. SIR WILLIAM STEWART OF HOUSTON

A CAPTAIN OF THE KING’S GUARD1

W h e n , one day in 1584, the French agent Fontenoy remarked to James the Sixth that it was unwise to exalt a nobleman to a position from which he could not be easily pulled down, the King replied that it was for this reason that he employed simple soldiers, such as Arran and Colonel Stewart, whom he had raised from the gutter and could put down at will. As to this William Stewart, he valued him only as a brave fighting man. He had, said the King, as little intelligence as he had gift of speech, but he was without malice, and was a faithful servant. Once, indeed, he had forgotten himself, and James rudely threatened to reduce him to the rogue and rascal (coquin et belitre) that he once was, and so brought the Colonel to his knees. If the King here uttered his true mind, his discernment and foresight were singularly at fault. Stewart had already shown, and was yet to show, considerable diplomatic skill. He had, indeed, a zeal for his master’s service second only to his zeal in pursuit of his own interests; and he had surely enough of malice. He was a force in the country, belonging in turn to almost every political party, and was, or appeared to be, the trusted friend of half a dozen princes, who busied themselves in promoting his personal concerns. So true a child of his time, and so constant a favourite of the King, at whose side he remained off and on for over twenty years, deserves better treatment than to be ignored by biographers, or to be confused (as he has been by Tytler and others) with his namesake, Arran’s brother. Only the merest outline of his adventurous career can be given here. As to his origin, Calderwood, who regarded him with 1 The Scotsman, January 25, 1897. 328 SIR WILLIAM STEWART OF HOUSTON horror as the author of wreck and ruin to the true religion and to the King’s soul, tells us that this intolerable upstart was a ‘ cloutter of old shoes,’ who went into Flanders to serve as a common soldier, and came out a Colonel. The Stewart genealogists, however, give him a respectable place in the family tree as a younger son of Thomas Stewart of Galston, by his wife Isabel Henderson, which makes him grand-nephew of John, Lord Darnley, first Earl of Lennox. William may be the ‘ Mr. William Stewart ’ described as 4 servant of Lady Lennox,’ who was on his way south with a Mr. Henryson, ‘ an old and affectionate servant of the Scottish Queen,’ in October 1572, to meet Lady Lennox, and to give certain informa­ tion to Lord Burghley. In any case our William was three years later in the Low Countries corresponding with Burghley; and in October 1575 he wrote from Rotterdam announcing that he had received a commission from the Prince of Orange to serve with 300 Scots, and asking for licence to transport pikes and corselets from England, as he doubted if he could purchase arms in his own country at reasonable prices. In 1580 the Colonel had under his command five companies of Scots, while Balfour had eight. Meantime he had married the widow of the Count de Manderscheit, a Flemish lady, apparently well endowed with worldly goods. Great efforts were now being made by the Spaniards, with the approval of Mary Stuart, to entice the Scots away from the Dutch service. Balfour himself was shaky in his allegiance, and Stewart, who was said to be much under the influence of Mary’s Ambassador, was to be ‘ sounded.’ The Queen herself wrote, in the autumn of 1581, to recall the Scots, especially naming Stewart, to whom she promised a good pension. But next year came the Ruthven Raid, and the Church and the lords-reformers were again in the ascendant. Stewart, whether bribed or not, left his regiment; and having lost his wife, or at least her property, he suddenly appeared in Scotland in 1582 as Captain of the King’s Guard, and one of the King’s Commissioners at the General Assembly. He was now sent into England as Ambassador with John Colville, to cement the English alliance and to get money SIR WILLIAM STEWART OF HOUSTON 329 for James. He was made much of at the Court of Elizabeth, who presented him with a valuable chain. Poor Mary Stuart seems quite forgotten ; and Castelnau, annoyed at his standing off, sneers at him as ‘ un pauvre aventurier ecossois.’ On his return to Edinburgh he quarrelled with Colville, and was taken into close counsel with the King, who wished to be rid of the control of the lords-reformers. Stewart was in his element. He effected the required coup d'etat with complete success, and initiated the rule of the Earl of Arran. The two men, though jealous of each other, governed both King and country. Stewart was made a member of the Privy Council, and rose rapidly in power. Whenever there was rough or dangerous work to do for the King, he was there to do i t ; one day bombarding and capturing the Earl of Gowrie at Dundee, a few days later threatening Stirling with 500 men, or marching against Maxwell on the Borders. ‘ He wanted not likewise his reward,’ says Calderwood, ‘ for he was gifted with the Priory of Pittenweem, and married the Lady Pitfirrane (Isabel Hepburn), not without suspicion of the murder of her former husband.’ All, however, except the Scottish clergy, who had cast him off for ever, seemed to place some reliance on him. Mary Stuart herself in 1585, strange to say, at the request of the Queen of England, interceded with the Prince of Parma on behalf of the Colonel; and the Colonel himself wrote to Philip n., to Parma, and to the Guises for the recovery of his first wife’s possessions. To Parma he promised in return that he would hand over to him the companies of Scots formerly under his command in the Netherlands, adding, not very intelligibly, that he could easily do so under pretence that he had never been paid for them. When the turn of fortune brought about the downfall of Arran, and the lords-reformers were in power again, Stewart lost his captaincy of the guard, and was taken away to Dumfries as prisoner of Lord Maxwell. The ‘ simple soldier ’ quickly adapted himself to the change, made friends with the Catholic Maxwell, reappeared for a short while at Court, and with or without the active concurrence of the King, started for the Continent. He 330 SIR WILLIAM STEWART OF HOUSTON first went to the King of Denmark, and added that sovereign to his list of royal suppliants for the restitution of his Flemish dowry; then he appeared at Paris, closeted with Mendoza, and convinced that experienced soldier and wily diplomatist that he, Stewart, was the accredited agent of the Catholic Earls who were prepared to throw in their lot with Spain to strike a blow for liberty of conscience, with the view of ultimately restoring Scotland to the Church of Rome. He presented to the Ambassador a list of Scottish nobles, marking friends, enemies, and the indifferent. Of the six enemies, he proved that it would be enough to kill four—Hamilton, Boyd, Angus, and Mar—in order to secure the success of the enterprise. In this view his fellow-emissary, Robert Bruce, after­ wards hanged by Huntly for turning informer and spy, concurred. It is not surprising to learn that Stewart was now in great credit with Parma, and that at last he had gained his long-sought prize, the recovery of his wife’s money. James, on Stewart’s return, would no longer give countenance to his Spanish intrigues, but these had probably produced all the fruit which had been expected. The Colonel, however, had done some useful business for his royal master in Denmark, and was in high favour. It was the year of the Armada, and he now hit upon a most original scheme for worrying his former Dutch friends, who had denied his claims for arrears of military pay. He obtained from James letters of marque to prey upon the Dutch merchandise by way of exacting forcible com­ pensation. The bewildered Dutch appealed to Queen Elizabeth, who scolded James. They sent envoys to Scotland, who got no further than London, and then others, who sailed direct to Leith, May 17, 1589. The curious story of this embassy is scarcely noticed in our national records, but it is told briefly by Meteren and more fully in the State papers at The Hague, the publication of which is promised by the Scottish History Society. There was much parleying in Edinburgh with King, magistrates, and ministers. The King loyally backed his friend, and insisted upon Stewart being present at the conferences. Upon this the Dutch talked in Latin, which the Colonel could not follow. The upshot was not SIR WILLIAM STEWART OF HOUSTON 331 satisfactory to the Dutch, and eventually (1594) the Estates had to pay to the fortunate Colonel a large sum of money. No sooner had the envoys embarked at Leith than Stewart set sail from Aberdeen to arrange for the coming over of the Princess Anne of Denmark. His activity and voyages on this romantic affair are well known. The winds were against him, but all else prospered. He was once more a member of the Privy Council. Lands and money were granted to him by a grateful country. In 1590 he was sent as Ambassador to the Princes of Germany, and in 1593 to The Hague, to promote, for a novelty, an evangelical alliance against the Jesuits. In 1594 he acquired the lands of Houston, and on the occasion of Prince Henry’s baptism he received the honour of knighthood. In that same year the 4 cloutter of old shoes ’ went once more as Ambassador to Holland, and again in 1598 to Denmark. A moment­ ary cloud had fallen upon him in 1591, when he was suspected of being an accomplice in one of the mad freaks of Bothwell, and he was warded first in Edinburgh Castle and then at Blackness. At another time he ran the risk of a bloody encounter with the young Earl of Gowrie, whose father he had seized and brought to his death. Swords were drawn and insulting words passed. Perhaps the Colonel had now lost some of his old nerve, for when a little later he offered his services to Queen Elizabeth against her Irish rebels, it was suspected that his object was to get beyond the reach of the vindictive Gowrie. He, however, lived to see King James on the throne of England; and then his name gradually dis­ appears from our records. He had a daughter Anne, born 5th June 1595. He left an only son, Frederick, in whose favour the lands and baronies of the Priory of Pittenweem were erected into a temporal lordship by Act of Parliament in 1606 ; and this Frederick, who was created Lord Pittenweem (26th January 1609), died childless. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE1

A m o n g the many Scottish missionary priests who laboured and suffered in their native country under heavy perse­ cution, during the century which followed the Reforma­ tion, there was none who gained throughout Europe greater renown than the Capuchin Friar, known in the world as George Leslie, and in religion as Father Arch­ angel. The publishers of his biography vie with each other in extolling his nobility of birth, his brilliant gifts, his heroism, and his sanctity. He was the ‘ Admirable Crichton ’ of religion. Francis Clifton, an English royalist living in exile in France, does not hesitate, in addressing the recent convert, the Earl of Bristol, to express his own opinion that this Capuchin Father was ‘ the most illustrious personage that Scotland has produced.’ Toti Europce factus est spectaculuvi, says Bernardus de Bon- onia. ‘ A veritable polestar risen in this our age of the soul’s night in the midst of wandering heresy,’ writes an enthusiastic Fleming. Cardinal Ludovisio is said to have examined the evidence transmitted to Rome by the nobility of Scotland, and to have declared that no mis­ sionary had borne greater fruit; and one of his French biographers pronounces, with reason, that if any one could be canonised by the popular voice, George Leslie would indeed be a Saint. The famous missionary, who was born of Protestant parents in Aberdeenshire in the last decade of the six­ teenth century, became in his youth a convert to the Church of Rome, and entered the order of the Capuchins in Italy. Some time afterwards he was sent into Scot­ land (1623-1629), and it was on returning to Italy after this his first missionary journey that he made the ac­ quaintance of John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, in whose diocese Leslie’s convent was then situ­ ated. Rinuccini, who is best known in this country as 1 The Scottish Review, January 1891. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 333 the papal envoy sent to the Irish Catholics in the troublous times of 1645-1650, had been, when he first met Leslie, five years in the enjoyment of his see. It was the year, too, he tells us, of the marriage of the Infanta of Spain and Ferdinand, King of Hungary, that is 1631. The Archbishop became greatly attached to Father Archangel, employed him in preaching and other ministerial work in his diocese, and was so struck by the pious and romantic story of his conversion and adven­ tures, which he heard from the Scotsman’s own lips, that he resolved to put it into print for the edification of Christendom. ‘ II Cappuccino Scozzese’ appeared accordingly at Macerata in 1644, with a preface, addressed ‘ All’ Illustrissimo Sig. Cavalier Tomasso Rinuccini,’ and signed by Pompeo Tomassini. It appears to have had a rapid sale. In the same year there was issued another impression, or the same with another title-page, at Bologna, and in the following year at Bologna again, Venice, Florence, and Rome— the preface to the Roman edition being dated January 1645, two months before Rinuccini’s departure upon his Irish political mission. It was the author’s belief that his narrative con­ tained convincing evidence of the divinity of the Roman Church. ‘ Who will give wings to this little book,’ cries the ecstatic Archbishop, ‘ that it may fly boldly into all the corners of the earth and defy the rigours of climate ? . . . Who will aid it to fly as far as Norway, or into the dense forests of Prussia ? May haughty Pomerania read this history, may the fierce Dane, the proud Swede, study it even among the rocks of Stockholm, and say if they have any grounds upon which to withstand it’ ; and, in the spirit of prophecy he concludes, ‘ they will deny the truth of the facts, and with impious contempt give the lie to the book.’ The little book took wings indeed. The Pere Fran­ c is Barrault, Procurator-General of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, then residing at Rome, made a trans­ lation from Rinuccini’s manuscript and sent it to Paris, where the ‘ Histoire Merveilleuse et tres veritable’ was published in 1650, with two portraits, one of the ‘ Bien- heureux R. P. George, Capucin Ecossais, Grand Pre- 334 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE dicateur et Superieur des Missions Estrangeres,’ and the other of the Duchesse de Chastillon, to whom it is dedicated. It issued from the French press again at Mons in 1652 and at Paris in 1656. An enlarged edition, for which Francis Clifton, already referred to, made himself responsible, was printed at Rouen in 1660. Other French impressions followed rapidly: at Rouen again in 1662, twice at Paris from different publishers in 1664, again at Paris in 1669 and 1682, and lastly at Rouen in 1700. Portraits, not by any means agreeing with one another, multiplied also. Meanwhile the original Italian had been reprinted at Venice in 1647, perhaps again in 1649, and certainly in 1663; and Father Antonio Vasquez, the author of a life of St. Philip Neri, made a translation of Rinuc- cini for the Spaniards, which went through at least two editions (Madrid, 1647 and 1661). Basil de Teruel is said to have produced another version, also at Madrid, in 1659; and finally Francisco de Ajofrin published this narrative, together with the lives of other Scottish Ca­ puchins ‘ famous for sanctity and nobility,’ in 1787. The Portuguese were not behindhand. Diego Gomes Car- neiro brought out an edition at Lisbon in 1657; and a great preacher, Christ, de Almeyda, suffragan or coad­ jutor of the Archbishop of Lisbon, published another in 1667. The book passed into Flemish (at Bruges and Ghent) in 1686, and into Dutch at Antwerp in 1701. A Capuchin under the name of Lucianus Montifontanus published a German version, together with the life of Archangel Forbes, at Constanz, in 1677; and Fidelis of Rotten burg another, from the enlarged French version, at Bregenz in 1711. The Roman Capuchins were so pleased with the story that they threw it into the form of a drama, and printed their play in 1673 under the title of ‘ II Cappuccino Scozzese in Scena ’ ; and in 1760 there appeared at Rome II Cappuccino Scozzese, da scrit- tori francesi, scozzesi e portughesi. A Latin life had been written by Richardus Hybernensis in 1662, containing some fresh information, but unfortunately, owing to the death of the author, it was never printed. The manu­ script was, however, seen and used by Bernard of Bologna in his Bibliotheca Scriptorum Capuccinorum, where he THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 335 gives to the illustrious Scottish friar three or four times as much space as he gives, on an average, to the greatest writers of the order. There is no difficulty in understanding the popularity of the tale. A great interest had been taken by the Catholic world, especially after 1580, in the combined political and religious attack upon the Protestantism of Great Britain. The history of the conflict as told by Aquepontanus (or Bridgwater) in his Concertatio, and by Nicolas Sanders and his continuators, was well dis­ seminated in Europe. Pollini told it to the Italians in the vernacular, and Yepez and Ribadeneyra to the Spaniards. The numerous apologies for the martyrs by Cardinal Allen and Father Parsons made all men acquainted with the conditions of the struggle as they were presented at least on the papal side, while numer­ ous martyrologies and biographies, of which the life ot Campion the prince of the Jesuit missionaries was a conspicuous example, gave graphic pictures of the minor details. This literature continued to be abundant during the whole of the seventeenth century. The contemporary records, as far as they deal with facts, are, in comparison with such martyrologies in general, remarkable for their fidelity to truth. They were carefully compiled, for it was the aim of these writings to bring home to the English Government the injustice of the persecution and the barbarity of its methods, quite as much as to edify believers or to sound the praises of the Roman Church. In Scotland the conditions were very different. When the interest excited by the romantic fate of Mary Stuart and the faint possibility of her sons conversion had died away, and notably when the crowns of Scotland and England were united, comparatively little was heard in Europe of the Catholics of the north. There was no bond of cohesion among them, no ecclesiastical organisa­ tion, not even a prefect of the mission until 1653. They had no great leaders, no literature to speak of, and very little money. Individually they suffered terrible hard­ ships, worse, it is said, than what was endured by the recusants of England, yet they had but a single martyr whose biography could call for the sympathies and ad­ 336 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE miration of their co-religionists abroad. The seventeenth century was a dark age for Catholic Scotland. Thus, while private letters and the reports of exiles made known vaguely the severity of the persecution and the meritorious labours of the hunted missionary, there was, comparatively speaking, a lack of definite information or of thrilling narrative with which to satisfy the pious curiosity of the faithful. Under these circumstances the welcome received by this story of the Scottish Capuchin is not surprising. Here was a typical Scottish convert, noble, chivalrous, accomplished, and a saint almost from his cradle. Here was a missionary whose romantic adventures put those of the English Jesuits, Campion or Gerard, in the shade; and here was a picture— a unique picture— of Scottish family life in the very heart of the persecution. The story came, too, with authority. The Archbishop of Fermo was a man of affairs, held in high esteem at the Court of Rome, and he wrote with an eloquence and enthusiasm befitting his subject. Only in the land of the hero’s birth did the book meet with rather a cold reception. For more than two centuries there was no translation printed in the English language, nor is there evidence of any deep impression made by his memory in Catholic Scotland or England. On the contrary, certain Jesuit Fathers, his contem­ poraries, as we shall see, insinuated their doubts and mis­ givings ; and little or nothing more was heard of George Leslie in Scotland until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, unearthed the forgotten narrative, of which he gave a summary, as a specimen of his proposed Biographia Scotica. The Scots Magazine, also, about the same time (1802), printed an abstract of the life, and accused Rinuccini of deliberate fiction; while the author of the article, ‘ George Leslie of Monymusk,’ in Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary o f Eminent Scotsmen (1835), calls attention to the ‘ absurdities ’ of the story. Later on, Colonel Leslie, a Roman Catholic, in his Historical Records of the Family o f Leslie, points out some serious errors in the narrative, hazards the suggestion that it was written as ‘ a pious THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 337 romance,’ and apparently inclines to give credit to a strange surmise of the Abbe Macpherson, that the original was not written by Rinuccini, but by a Jesuit Father by name Andrew Leslie. In spite of this tentative scepticism, the biography has recently taken a new lease of life. It has been reproduced within the last thirty years almost as often, and in as many different quarters, as during the first thirty years of its existence. Capuchin historians abroad everywhere make much of it. It was reproduced at Modena in 1862. Dr. Raess, the Bishop of Strassburg, in his great biographical work on famous Converts to the Roman Church since the Reformation (1873), gives thirty closely printed pages to Leslie. Rocco da Cesinale, an ex-provincial, who attended the Vatican Council as theologian, and is now the procurator of the missions of his order, in his account of Leslie in his History of the Capuchin Missions (1872) is indignant with those who presume to hint at any doubts regarding the truth of the biography. The P&re Richard has devoted to the same subject a handsome volume printed at Lille, with an epilogue and embellishments of his own, about 1883. The life in its fullest form now made its appearance for the first time in England in the pages of The Annals of the Franciscans (1879-1881), and it has found its way to the United States in a little volume published anonymously at Philadelphia. Canon Bellesheim in his Geschichte der hath. Kirche in Schottland, and Father Hunter-Blair, his translator, celebrate ‘ a life distin­ guished, even in those troublous times, by trials of no ordinary kind ’; and admitting some possible indiscretions in their hero, call upon their readers to admire his zeal for souls, his ardent nature, and his ‘ almost unlimited influence over all with whom he came in contact.’ It is, however, remarkable that few of the modern writers, Catholics or Protestants, who have related the history, appear to have seen the original work of Rinuc­ cini, or the first literal translations from it; and those who have seen it and quote it have not noticed or called attention to the successive stages in the growth of the story. Lord Hailes, who imagined that he was using 338 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE a second revised French edition, was in fact using the ninth, and this error led him to ascribe to Rinuccini many statements which the archbishop never made. Other writers who have had the original in their hands use all sources indiscriminately, and make no attempt to dissect the history into its component parts, or to distinguish the authority, or lack of authority, due to each. The literary history of Rinuccini’s book is, in fact, curious and instructive. It presents some interesting questions in the ethics of pious biography; and there seems, therefore, sufficient reason for once more laying all the facts before the reader. The original story, as told by Rinuccini in 1644, or by his French translator in 1650, was this. George Leslie was the son of James Leslie and ‘ Selvia’ [i.e. Wood], his wife, Protestants of most noble blood and great wealth, who lived in Aberdeen. James died soon after the birth of his son, and left him heir to his large possessions. In his will he directed that the boy should be educated at Paris. The mother married again— Rinuccini does not say whom— and when George arrived at the age of eight years she sent him, with a private tutor and an equipage proper for his station, to Paris. Here the boy made rapid progress in study and virtue, and was universally beloved. He wisely chose for his closest companions two brothers of a noble family, who with him attended the University of Paris. These young men invited George to their father’s country-house, and gradually by arguments, which are related at length, made him a convert to their faith. The youth’s con­ version could not long be concealed from the Calvinistic tutor, who reported it to the mother. She threatened to disown her son, to deprive him of his estates, to blot him out from the genealogical tree— all in vain. She then angrily recalled the tutor, withdrew from George all supplies of money, and pronounced upon him her curse. He was, however, given a home by the father of his university friends, and with the latter, in his sixteenth year, he proceeded on a tour in Italy. On arriving at Rome, the three young men paid a visit to the famous Capuchin Father, Ange de Joyeuse, THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 339 formerly known as the Comte du Bouchage and Due de Joyeuse. The Scotsman was so captivated by the edify­ ing life and conversation of this Father, that he could not tear himself away from his society. While the Parisians entertained themselves with the antiquities and sights of Rome, George spent his days in the Capuchin convent. When the time came for his friends to return home, he could not be persuaded to join them, while he made known to the Father General, Girolamo da Castel Fer- retti, his desire to enter the order of the Capuchins. The General expressed some scruple of admitting him, on the ground that a papal bull had prohibited the admission of converted heretics. In his distress, Leslie appealed for counsel to Ange de Joyeuse, who thought the decree in question referred only to sons of apostates, not to persons born in heresy. The fathers debated the matter, but could come to no conclusion. Thereupon Leslie now took a truly celestial resolve. He went boldly to the Quirinal, passed the papal guards, ascended the stairs to the ante-chamber, announced himself a Scot, and de­ manded audience of the Holy Father. On being admitted to the presence of Paul v., he was dazzled with a light more luminous than the sun, which proceeded from the sacred head of the Pontiff. This, says Rinuccini, Leslie, in obedience to his superior, had often described, and ‘ he confirmed the fact to me upon oath.’ Such splendours, indeed, adds the archbishop, always encompass the Roman pontiff, but they are not visible to every one. The young Scotsman, who knew three languages besides Latin, addressed the Holy Father confusedly in all; but the pope, instructed by heaven, easily understood him, and said promptly, fi Go, my son, in joy, and if the Father General refuses you, say to him that we on our part receive you.’ Leslie was, of course, at once admitted to the order. The General destined him to the convent at Camerino, bestowed on him the name of Archangel, and then throwing himself 011 his knees before the young novice, demanded pardon and penance for his former opposition to his reception. Some fathers who knew Leslie, says Rinuccini, still speak of his fervour and devotion at this time. His 340 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE

superiors, aware of the progress he made in learning at the University of Paris, set him at once, after his profes­ sion, to the study of philosophy and theology; and he soon became famous as a preacher. It was now twenty years since George had left his mother’s house, when some Scottish gentlemen, returning from their travels, brought back to his mother the news that her son was a Capuchin, and living in the Marches of Ancona. She heard that these same Capuchins were beggars, their clothing dirty, and their condition considered shameful. In her rage and despair she poured forth exclamations, which cover three pages of print, and resolved to wipe out the stain upon the honour of her family by procuring her son’s assassination. His own discarded wealth, she declared, should be the recompense of his murderer, and the house which her son had abandoned should become the asylum of his assassin. On second thoughts, how­ ever, she summoned her eldest son by her second marriage, and commissioned him to proceed at once to Italy to find out George, and by every means in his power to induce that erring brother to return home. She sent with him a letter beginning: eTo George Leslie, my very dear son. He who gives you this letter is your brother,’ etc. Archangel was then at Urbino, in the convent of which Justus de Bonafide was the guardian. On hearing of the arrival of the younger brother all the nobility of Urbino hastened to visit him. The eccentric and accom­ plished Francesco Maria della Rovere, the last of the Dukes of Urbino, insisted upon his taking up his residence in the palace. For such honours the Scotsman was not prepared ; otherwise, he assured the prince, that he would have brought with him recommendations from his king. A t last, when overcome by the arguments of his brother, he resolved to abjure his heresy, the Duke, to the delight of all his subjects, proclaimed a general holiday. Crowds thronged to the Cathedral to witness the ceremony, while the Scot, with his hand on his sword, amid the tears of the people and the intoning of the Te Deum, made pro­ fession of his new creed. The return to the palace was a triumph. There was a procession of the nobility, the royal guards and archers, and a grand discharge of fire­ THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 341 arms, The function ended with a splendid banquet, to which the Capuchin fathers were invited by the Duke. The piles of sweetmeats filled the good friars with wonder, and served as steps to elevate their minds to the most sublime contemplation. The skill of the confectioner in forming statues of jellies and creams was to them less admirable than the divine power which could thus soften and mould the stubborn heart of a heretic. The younger brother— Rinuccini does not give his Christian name—now prepared to go home. All agreed that he should dissimulate with his mother, and, above all, conceal his conversion, and meanwhile watch for a favour­ able opportunity for the return of Archangel. The Duke presented the traveller with a gold chain, to which was attached a crucifix studded with pearls and rubies. On his arrival at Monymusk the mother was much disap­ pointed with the evasive account he gave of his negotia­ tions. On going into his room at night, however, she caught sight of the jewelled crucifix and chain, which had been carelessly laid upon an ivory table. The treachery of her son was discovered. In her passion she dashed chain and cross upon the ground, cursed this second son, and drove him from her door. Meanwhile, Mary of Medicis, regent of France, wrote to her ambassador at Rome to look out for a suitable person of the Capuchin order to act for her as court preacher. Archangel, who happened to be at Rome at the time, was fixed upon for the office, and dispatched to Paris. His success there was immense. Gregory xv. now [1621] succeeded Paul v., and gave commission to his nephew, Cardinal Luigi Ludovisio, to found the Congre­ gation of Propaganda for the establishment and govern­ ment of foreign missions. One of the first acts of Propaganda was to select the popular court-preacher at Paris as chief and conductor of a mission to Scotland. He was also empowered to act as preacher and missionary in England. The necessary briefs were sent to him at Paris. As good fortune would have it, there was at that moment in Paris the Spanish ambassador, who was on his road to England to negotiate the proposed marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta. The ambassador 342 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE had need of an interpreter. The French queen proposed Archangel. The ambassador, after making due inquiries as to the Capuchin’s birth and antecedents, admitted him into his suite, and ordered him to be attired as a cavalier. Archangel remained in London as long as the am­ bassador was there, feeling bound in honour not to abandon his post as long as his services might be required ; and the manner in which he discharged his duties as interpreter gained for him the goodwill of the king. The ambassador, on the eve of his departure— the project of the Spanish match having fallen to the ground— presented Archangel with a magnificent horse. The Capuchin was now free to pursue his mission to Scotland. After passing a night in continued prayer, clothed in his hair shirt, he set out upon his journey, attended by two servants. One of these servants led the ambassador’s horse by hand, while Archangel himself humbly mounted a hack which he had bought at court. Yet he only rode at times to escape observation. As a rule he journeyed on foot, as becomes a friar. A t Aberdeen he wrote in his own name a letter to his mother, which he dated from Urbino, recommending the bearer as his intimate friend. Having done this he prayed to God to favour his stratagem. He would have blushed with shame if he had not acted for the good of the faith, and felt that, like Jacob, he was inspired to make use of such a dissimula­ tion. When he reached Monymusk, the lady was with her daughters-in-law engaged in embroidering a silk bed­ cover for her eldest son in the hope of his return. ‘ Madam,’ said the visitor, ‘ I have come from Italy, whence I bring you a letter from your son.’ She took the letter, but before reading it looked the cavalier in the face and exclaimed, ‘ The most ungrateful son that ever lived, and a disgrace to his kindred.’ However, she made the stranger welcome, and politely assured him that in that house he was master. A t dinner Archangel’s mind was agitated with conflicting sentiments. Accord­ ing to the custom of the country, a heretical minister sat at table with the rest. Archangel was horrified to see this impious minister in the company. He thought with indignation of the 300 crowns a year the man THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 343 received as the price of ignorance and error. The food seemed infected with poison, and the feast became as a funeral. Archangel forgot to eat. However, he soon won the good graces of the family. He insisted upon his youngest brother— in later editions called Edward— taking the Spanish horse as a gift, threatening to shoot the animal if it were not accepted. He let it be dis­ covered that he was a Catholic, and cleverly introduced apologies for the Capuchin. After five days had passed, an incautious question, repeated too loudly to a deaf servant, about an aviary, which George had remembered in the house in his boyhood and now missed, was over­ heard by the mother, and the discovery was made. Rinuccini’s description of the dramatic scene cannot be given at length, and would be spoiled by any abridg­ ment When, however, the swoons, the embracing, and the tears were over, the house became a theatre of joy. The news spread through the town, and the old lady received a thousand visits of congratulation. Fireworks were let off in the evening, and cannon were fired. An express was dispatched to recall the banished brother, who arrived at the castle on the following day. The minister alone was melancholy. Some fury of hell seized his heart, and venomous serpents devoured his entrails. For peace’s sake the mother imposed silence on both sides regarding matters of religion, and to this arrangement the Capuchin agreed. The restraint was almost unendurable to him. His zeal led him to secretly go out from the castle, under pretence of hunting, and there among the mountains and forests to preach to the people. He thus brought crowds to the faith. It is said that in eight months he made more than three thousand converts. Nevertheless, while his mother remained in heresy, his conscience could not rest. She observed his fatigue and his sadness, and an explanation followed. The Capuchin, it was arranged, should challenge the minister to a con­ troversial dispute, at which the mother would be present. The minister was led to declare that he belonged to the Church of Geneva, and that the Bible was his sole rule of faith. ‘ If you will show me,’ said Archangel, ‘ where there is mention of the Church of Geneva in Scripture, I 344 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE

will leave my mother in peace.’ The impious man, cast­ ing down his eyes, craved for time, and promised to find the passage. ‘ With my mother’s consent, I will give you twenty-four hours,’ replied the friar. On the re­ sumption of the debate the unhappy Calvinist, after much shuffling, had to admit that he could not lay his hand upon the text, but he in turn challenged Archangel to find mention of his own church. ‘ Bring me a Bible/ said the triumphant Capuchin ; 4 and opened at once the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where the apostle gives thanks that the Roman faith was announced throughout the world.’ In short, the impious one, con­ founded in five successive conferences, was expelled with ignominy from the house, and the mother, with her whole household, made submission to the Catholic Church. A large hall at the top of the house was now converted into a chapel; the ladies offered their jewels and chains, their robes and their embroideries, to worthily adorn it. The altar was decked with diamonds and pearls, and Archangel had a massive chalice wrought out of his mother’s rings. He now once more resumed his friar’s habit. This first mission continued undisturbed for two years, when suddenly there came the crash of a fresh persecu­ tion. Proclamations were posted up in Aberdeen com­ manding all priests to depart the realm under pain of death. Archangel, who had already thought of retiring across the border, and of living there unknown, now quitted Monymusk to carry into icy England the same fire with which he had kindled Scotland. He accordingly assembled all the Fathers engaged in the English mission, resolved upon new enterprises, and inspired them with fresh fervour. His mother encouraged him with her letters, at the end of one of which she wrote, ‘ I restore to you all that I unjustly took from you at Paris.’ This charitable communication marvellously consoled the mis­ sionaries. Archangel, during his stay in England, met with a strange adventure. He was one day on a journey, attended by a single valet, when an heretical bishop, with a large company, passed by on a visit to his diocese. The parties were exchanging salutes when Archangel spied among THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 345 the bishop’s suite the former chaplain of his mother. The recognition was mutual, and the minister pointed out the Capuchin to the bishop, who at once dispatched twenty-five men to seize him. Archangel put spurs to his horse and escaped in a wood, leaving in the hands of the satellites of Satan his writings, some books of con­ troversy, and his beautiful chalice. The heretical clergy made a bonfire of the papers and books, and the bishop gave a feast, at which he sacrilegiously passed round the chalice filled with wine. Archangel now received a letter from the Father General of his order, summoning him to Italy to make answer to certain charges which had been brought against him, before the Congregation of Propaganda. He had been accused of indulging too much in the comforts of home, and in a liberty unbecoming a missionary. The pious Capuchin^was overjoyed at the news. Now he had opportunity to merit. He prayed continually that there might be some obstacle to his justification, and he wrote to his mother that he was going to Italy on a matter extremely agreeable to himself, and he wished that he could make her partaker of his joy. When he reached Italy he found the plague ravaging the country, but the difficulties he encountered in consequence gave him fresh occasions for works of penance and charity. He sought and obtained from his superiors permission to devote himself to the plague-stricken at Cremona. Meanwhile he received from the Propaganda a full acquittal from all the charges brought against him. On the cessation of the plague he was appointed Guardian of the convent of Monte Georgio, and here it was, as has been said before, that he made the acquaintance of his future biographer, the Archbishop of Fermo. A t this point of his narrative Rinuccini makes a little digression to explain how he first met Archangel, of whose zeal he had already heard. Some mysterious lights had appeared in the year of the plague, generally on a Saturday, over an abandoned chapel by the river Lete. They were at once recognised as miraculous by the fishermen who first saw them, and afterwards by learned theologians, so that Rinuccini resolved, with the applause 346 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE of his clergy, to institute a feast, and to visit the chapel in procession. The chapel became a place of pilgrimage, and numbers of the sick were miraculously healed. Among the most frequent visitors to the newly erected shrine was Father Archangel, and here began the friend­ ship between the two men. Presently, from Monte Georgio, Archangel was sent to Ripa Transone, and here he found another friend in Vagnozzo Pica, rector of the Congregation of the Oratory. The better to enjoy the society of Archangel, the archbishop spent a week at the convent, and there, together with Father Pica, ex­ tracted from him the story which has been related. Rinuccini describes his impatience to hear every touching detail, and how he sat down in a rustic seat in the con­ vent garden, taking Father Pica by one hand and Arch­ angel by the other. The Capuchin had just told the story of his brother’s conversion at Url^no. ‘ I was the first to shed tears,’ writes the archbishop, fiand Father Pica, putting aside all the bitterness he had felt against the mother, could not refrain from weeping.’ Archangel, seeing them so much moved with tenderness from time to time, would pause till they recovered themselves. He spoke with great modesty of himself, passing lightly over the fruits of his mission, and he said little more of his mother. ‘ I asked him,’ says Rinuccini, ‘ had she per­ severed, had he no news of her ? ’ At these words the servant of God uttered a deep sigh, but afterwards re­ turning to his natural gaiety, turned his eyes towards me and said, ‘ Monsignore, I think you believe that beneath this habit I bear some zeal for the Catholic religion, but all that I have is as embers compared with the flames which consume my mother’ ; and he proceeded to tell how, after his departure from Scotland, the heretics watched his mother, and finding she did not go to church, excommunicated her, and brought her before the judge, who condemned her to the loss of all her goods. She retired to a small house, and lived in great poverty upon the little she could make by needlework. She wrote to her son a letter of saintly resignation, upon the receipt of which Archangel passed over to France, and there, from his influence with the court, obtained letters to the King THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 347 of England, which (as he learned later on in Italy) had this effect—that his mother was replaced in possession of her lands and immovable property; but she could not recover her movable possessions, which had been sold. Archangel, however, was not satisfied, and wished to console her by his presence. He returned to Scotland in the disguise of a peasant.1 As he drew near Mony- musk, he gathered some herbs, and pretending to be a gardener, went crying about the streets, ‘ Buy my greens!’ The guards stopped him at the gates. He dared not ask where his mother lived, so he walked three times through the town. Having sold almost all his greens, he was at a loss for some new pretence to continue his search, when his mother came and cried, ‘ Here, gardener.’ Archangel was deeply affected at seeing his mother dressed like a servant maid, and reduced to the necessity of buying her own vegetables. While she was bargaining about her purchase, he looked her full in the face and said, ‘ Madam, this gardener does not sell, but gives to his mother.’ . She uttered a cry which might have been fatal to them. The interview was necessarily short. The commissaries of the King in matters of religion broke into the house, exclaiming, 4 Do you not know this woman is a papist ? ’ and Archangel with difficulty escaped into England. It was at this point that Rinuccini resolved to write the history. Meanwhile, having to return home, he begged Father Pica to use his opportunities to gather from the missionary fresh information. But eight days afterwards, the archbishop found Archangel himself at prayer at the chapel of Lete. Archangel then told him that he had known that the Queen of the Sea intended him for a new voyage, and now he had just received a letter from the General announcing that the pope had nominated Archangel as the companion of Father William of Paris for a new mission to Scotland. The archbishop, at the same time, revealed the secret that he himself had been inspired on this same spot with a resolution to go into England and Scotland, if there should be any prospect of the conversion of these countries. Archangel,

1 The later compilers find some difficulty in making- a suitable place for this return to Scotland in consistency with the rest of the narrative. 348 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE after adoring the Holy House, at Loreto, went to Rome, and thence to Leghorn, waiting a favourable wind. From Leghorn he wrote to Rinuccini a letter, which is printed in full. He attributes the favourable beginning of his journey to ‘ the Queen of the Adriatic.’ He hopes to prepare a way for his friend, and sends messages to Father Pica. This was the last which Rinuccini heard of Arch­ angel. He read and re-read his letter, and preserved it as one of his greatest treasures. But, alas! he cannot satisfy the reader’s natural impatience to know what great conquest the missionary made in this his new enterprise, or what adventures befell him. Two years afterwards, the Capuchins indeed received news that Father Archangel had died in Scotland. But the arch­ bishop laughed at the attempt of Death to remove a man who in every way was immortal. He hoped to preserve him ever living, by means of the memoranda furnished by Father Pica; but to give him an immortality more glorious, he made diligent inquiries on all sides concern­ ing this second mission. He questioned Scotsmen who passed through Italy, he read with unusual diligence the memoirs of his order, the Roman registers and letters from England, but without success. He shed tears at the ingratitude of silence. How could he propose this life as a model to religious if the end was concealed in darkness? ‘ Writers of Scotland,’ he exclaims, ‘ how is it that you have neglected to record the actions of Father Archangel ? Has the inclemency of the North frozen your intellects ? Unhappy Aberdeen ! ’ and so on. But, after all, the place of Moses’ burial was not known to men, and with this consoling reflection the author closes his book. This, then, is the shape in which the story appeared, not only in the original Italian published at Macerata, Bologna, Florence, Venice, and Rome in 1644-45, but also in the first translations into French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Rinuccini returned to his diocese from his Irish nunciatura in June 1650, and died December 1653. There is no reason to suppose that the Archbishop and Father Pica were guilty of uttering and disseminating THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 349 a deliberate fiction. They can have had no motive for doing so. But their evident simplicity and credulity may have tempted the friar, a clever, plausible, and apparently vain man, to give to his family a social posi­ tion and wealth which they never had, and to make himself the hero of romantic episodes which had no existence, except in his own dreams. Mere exaggeration in details, such as picturing the diminutive village of Monymusk with gates and guards, thousands of inhabi­ tants, and streets through which Archangel walked three times, might be set down to the ignorance or fancy of foreign biographers; but the falsity of the narrative does not lie in such details. It affects the very essence of the history. It is enough to say here that Monymusk house was never in possession of any member of the Leslie family. The present mansion (as is shown by Colonel Leslie, the historian of the family) was built by Duncan Forbes, the son of Lord Forbes, about 1554. His son, William Forbes of Monymusk, succeeded in 1587, and was in turn succeeded (before 1618) by his eldest son William, created a baronet by Charles i., by patent addressed ‘ Domino Willelmo Forbes de Monymusk/ 2nd April 1626. Sir William Forbes was in possession of the place and resided there at the time when the Capuchin is represented as having made it the head­ quarters of his mission, and when it is said to have been taken from, and again restored to, Archangel’s mother by the King. Monymusk remained the property of these Forbeses, always rigid Protestants, till 1710. But to take away Monymusk from the life of Archangel is obviously to destroy the whole fabric of his story. Its romance vanishes, and with it the character of the teller. There seems to be something infectious in literary fiction of this kind. Ingenious and unscrupulous persons will be tempted to carry on the deception with no other motive than the love of mystery. The regrets of Rinuc­ cini would appear like a challenge to imaginative writers to fill in the story of the second mission. In any case, not many years passed by before there was published an enlarged and improved edition of the Histoire tres veritable, giving the much desired information in the 350 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE amplest detail. In this edition the concluding para­ graphs of the original are suppressed, and replaced by a supplementary chapter. Various interpolations are made throughout the work. Personal names which Rinuccini could not, or did not give, are supplied. The younger half-brother becomes Edward, the elder is styled the ‘ Baron de Torrey’ ; the Capuchin himself becomes a Count, and his mother the Baroness. This does not give the reader confidence in the historic accuracy or discre­ tion of the continuator; for the first Count of the name of Leslie was Walter, son of John Leslie, tenth baron of Balquhairn, who was created a Count of the holy Roman Empire by Ferdinand h i . in 1637, the year of Archangel’s death. The barony of Torry, too, was held not by a Leslie but by Forbes of Monymusk in 1618, and remained in possession of the Forbes family until 1705, when it was sold by Sir William to the town of Aberdeen. Rinuccini had remarked that the Capuchin spoke modestly of his exploits. This, perhaps, suggested to the continuator to magnify the ‘ more than 3000 converts ’ into ‘ more than 4000,’ and to describe with picturesque detail how the missionary when he went forth from Monymusk to preach in the mountains, would fix a crucifix upon a stake in the ground; how before he had talked for ten minutes the people would change colour, groan, shed tears, and throw themselves at his feet imploring him to reconcile them to the true Church ; and how, at other times, he would boldly walk into the churches when the minister was preaching, loudly de­ nounce his impostures, and call upon the congregation to come to himself for the truth. The story of the second mission, which must here be considerably abridged, is in outline as follows. From Leghorn, Archangel sailed to Marseilles, thence pro­ ceeded to Paris, where he was invited by the French Queen to preach at the Louvre. He then embarked at Calais with one Father Epiphanes on board a vessel the captain of which happened to be a Catholic. A furious storm arose, and it was proposed to cast lots to determine who should be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. There was a question whether the Capuchins THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 351 should be included or not. Some said, yes; for they were men always ready to sacrifice their lives. Others said, no; for Scotland would call the rest to account for the lives of two persons of such extraordinary merit. The Capuchins, however, refused to be exempted, and the casting of lots was proceeding, when the ship was cast upon a rock near the Isle of Wight. Most of the crew perished. Archangel, Epiphanes, and some others landed on a lonely place, where they were directed by a shepherd to a village where the King of England and the chief lords of his court were wont to come to hunt. On the road Archangel converted from Protestantism two of his companions. On arriving at St. Calpin— which is not marked on the maps—he laid aside the name of Leslie and called himself Selvian. At the inn he met a young gentleman of whom, in the course of a long conversation, he inquired if there were many Roman Catholics left in Scotland since the great persecution. ‘ Formerly,’ said the young gentleman, 4 there were very many, but the King by his severe edicts has expelled them all and confiscated their estates; and at present there remains but one family of them, settled in the large town of Monymusk. To this family the King, by a singular instance of bounty, has restored its forfeited estates, and out of gratitude for its services to him he tolerates it alone in the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.’ The gentleman turned out to be his brother Edward. The story of the recognition is told in a style well imitated from Rinuccini. From Edward, Arch­ angel learned the sad account of his mother’s death. She had heard of Archangel’s projected return to Scotland, and was impatient to get news of him. She walked every day on the road between Monymusk and Aber­ deen, and meeting on one occasion with some merchants from London, she was told there had been a great tempest in the Channel, that many ships had been lost, in one of which there were some priests. Convinced that her son Archangel was drowned, the old lady sickened with fever, and died nine days after. Edward had come to the Isle of Wight to ask the King to continue his favours and allow them to keep a 352 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE resident priest at Aberdeen for the consolation of the family. Archangel proposed to go with him to the King, and finding that his Majesty was out on a hunting expedition, the two brothers, while waiting for his return, examined the fortifications at Newport, and criticising them too freely, they were seized as spies and thrown into prison. When the King came back, the prisoners were led in chains into his presence. Charles soon recognised the Capuchin as having been at Court, and Archangel referred to the royal favours then bestowed on him, and especially the excellent horse that the King had made him accept. The prisoners were at once set at liberty. The King confirmed all the privileges of the family, and insisted that the brothers should take up their residence, during their stay in the island, at the royal castle, which they were to treat as if it was their mother’s house. They were then conducted to a grand chamber by the gate of the castle, where Archangel, next morning, placing a sentinel at the door, said Mass secretly, and gave communion to the new converts he had made on the island. On their departure the King put the two missionaries and Edward to confusion with his caresses. He gave them authentic passports to Aberdeen, whither they went by sea. Here the two Capuchins separated. The labours of Archangel in the neighbourhood were only too successful. The King in a rage sent for him into England, and fresh edicts were published against the Catholics. Archangel now set out on his last journey, in obedience to the royal command. He visited several of the nobility on the way, and at a conference with a number of gentlemen at Torphichen he converted the eldest son of the baron of Clugni, an Englishman by birth. Exhausted with his labours, on reaching the borders of England he fell sick. A Jesuit Father gave him the last sacraments and closed his eyes. For fear of the body being disturbed, his friends buried him on a haunted mountain in the neighbourhood, which the people dared not approach, as they constantly heard there the noise of hounds yelping, horses galloping, and men shouting. The Catholics, having no such fear, deposited on this spot the sacred relic. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 353 It is to rubbish such as this that learned divines and historians have given the weight of their names. Bernardus de Bononia, in the Bibliotheca of his order; Rocco da Cesinale, the historian of the missions; and P&re Richard, the latest biographer of our hero, point with confidence to the ‘ caterva scriptorum gravium,’ who by their testimony ‘ give the lie to those who presume to doubt its truth.’ Charles the First never resided at Newport in the life-time of Archangel. There is nothing more to be said on the matter. The whole Isle of Wight episode is a deliberate fiction from beginning to end. There is yet another termination to the story. The Capuchin Father at Rome, who thought of dramatising Rinuccini’s narrative in 1673, knew nothing of this account of the second mission, or of the half-a-dozen French editions containing it. He was therefore anxious, before completing his play, to get accurate information. He applied to the Procurator-General, who obtained from Mr. William Leslie, a Scottish gentleman then residing with Cardinal Carlo Barberini, a relation which is perhaps substantially correct. This William Leslie is said to have known and conversed with Archangel in Scotland. If he was the Rev. William Leslie who lived with Cardinal Barberini as agent of the Scottish clergy, he was a mere lad of fifteen years of age when he went abroad to Douay in 1636. His statement is, however, that Archangel was sent into Scotland about 1633, and arrived with other friars at Edinburgh, where they separated, Archangel remaining in Edinburgh for some days. A baron, named in the preface ‘ Daltay,’ but in the text of the drama perhaps more correctly, ‘ Dalgaty/ was lying seriously ill in the city, and sent for Archangel, who administered to him the last sacraments. The Puritans getting scent of this made a dash at the house. Archangel escaped by the window. His pursuers then turned upon the sick baron, called upon him to recant, and on his refusal murdered him in his bed. They then did the same to his young son. Archangel spent two years in the neighbourhood of his ‘ poor devout but consoled mother ’ [who was therefore not yet dead] and he himself died, with the assistance of a Jesuit Father, z 354 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE Andrew [Leslie] his relative. He was buried close by, in a chapel which had been destroyed by the heretics. Lastly, P&re Richard amalgamates and works up the several versions with many amplifications of his own. He is able to give a verbal report of some long conversa­ tions between Epiphanes and Archangel at Monymusk. He adds some new facts regarding the martyrdom o f ‘ baron Daltay ’ and his son, and, what is far more interesting, states that on his death-bed Archangel wrote to King Charles, who expressed to his courtiers his regret at the death of so distinguished a person, and dispatched couriers to dispense the Baron de Torrey, under the circumstances, from coming to London. Three weeks later, the family were assembled one morning at Monymusk, during a great storm, when suddenly the aged Epiphanes appeared before them. He told the bereaved family that on hearing the news of Archangel’s death he had sent a courier to the Father General, asking for fresh missionaries. He was certain they would soon arrive, as he was also confident that the manor of Monymusk would be their home and the centre of the Capuchin mission in the north of Scotland. Francis de Torrey in reply assured Epiphanes that the greater part of their fortune had belonged to Archangel, and at the very moment of Epiphanes’ arrival they had decided to devote it entirely to the mission. As long as Charles lived the barons of Torrey were undisturbed, but when that unfortunate monarch expired on the scaffold, the persecution raged with greater violence under the protectorate of the cruel and impious Cromwell. The house of Monymusk was delivered to the flames, and the barons, deprived of all their property, were driven to take shelter among the mountains. God gave no heir to either Francis or William, and with the three brothers the house of the Barons de Torrey was extinguished. But if their name is no longer found among the nobility of Great Britain, it is inscribed in characters of gold in the books of heaven. Pere Richard writes the last words of this veracious history at Bruges, on the feast of the Seraphic St. Francis of Assisi, 1882. It is difficult to acquit some of these compilers of l>ad THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 355 faith. Bernardus de Bononia, in his article on Archangel in the Bibliotheca (Venetiis, 1747) seems to have suspected some improbability in the Isle of Wight story. He therefore makes the shipwreck take place on a nameless ‘ island near England,’ preserves the interview with the brother, but discreetly drops all reference to King Charles and his Court at Newport. Bishop Raess, indeed, follows blindly the German editions without apparently attempt­ ing any critical inquiries on his own part. But Rocco da Cesinale and P&re Richard pretend to have made researches and examined the sources, and to have satisfied themselves of the truth of what they relate. Both refer, in proof of the trustworthy character of Rinuccini’s account, to his declaration that he had made diligent researches, whereas Rinuccini plainly intimates that he made these inquiries regarding the second mission only, and that these inquiries resulted in nothing. Rocco da Cesinale, again, states that in 1867 he met in London ‘ one of the descendants of Archangel, Colonel Leslie,’ who told him by word of mouth what he afterwards wrote in a letter, that ‘ the library was turned into a chapel by F. Archangel, and many traces of that use still remain,’ and that Rinuccini described * accurately the house of Monimusk’; yet Father Rocco suppresses the fact that two years later Colonel Leslie, in his work on the Leslie family—a work which Father Rocco had in his hand and refers to—denies that the Leslies were ever owners of the place, and asserts that Rinuccini’s book is ‘ a pious romance.’ 1 From Father Hunter-Blair, the translator and an­ notator of Canon Bellesheim’s German history of the .Catholic Church in Scotland, we should have expected a more accurate and critical statement. He is certainly more cautious than the Bishop of Strassburg or the historian of the Capuchin missions, to both of whom, how­ ever, he refers as authorities. In giving the substance of 1 Since this was written, I have learned that Father Rocco’s correspondent, in 1867, was not fColonel Leslie/ but his son, Mr. Charles Stephen Leslie. Whatever resemblance there may be to a Catholic chapel in the library of Mony- musk House, that library or chapel never belonged to Archangel’s mother. It was hardly fair on the part of Father Rocco to quote Mr. Leslie’s words in apparent confirmation of his story, and to hide from his readers the fact that Colonel Leslie, in the publication referred to, treated the Monymusk episode as an absolute fiction. 356 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE Rinuccini, he makes in a note the very inadequate comment, that ‘ many of the details’ of the biography ‘ are evidently more romantic than correct,’ and points especially to two errors, viz. that Leslie was proprietor of Monymusk, and that he held the title of ‘ Count.’ This last error, as we have seen, was not Rinuccini’s. Father Blair gives his readers no hint that the greater part of the story told by Raess, Rocco da Cesinale, and others, is demonstrably false, and he fails to see that his own admission as to the primary error in Rinuccini’s narrative, by no means an error of ‘ detail,’ renders all the rest, or all that depends upon Archangel’s testimony alone, absolutely worthless. It would be tedious to trace all the variations, additions, and transpositions which the tale has undergone after cross­ ing the Atlantic. Yet it is a curious and instructive study. For example, the Philadelphian editor considers himself justified in altering the words and tone of the letter, said to have been written to Archangel at Urbino by Mrs. Leslie, and in making her sign herself ‘ The Baroness de Torrey.’ Again, he represents the story of Archangel disguised as a gardener selling greens, as having been told by the Capuchin, not to Rinuccini, but to Epiphanes, when crossing the Channel. After these and many similar dealings, the compiler modestly declares, ‘ I am merely the translator of this true history, which is calculated to afford consolation to pious youth, and to encourage them never to despair . . . when they seek “ Ad majorem Dei gloriam.” ’ It is now time to gather up the threads of authentic history for the reconstruction of the real George Leslie. He is no myth. He was the son of James Leslie of Peterstone, and his wife, Jane Wood. After James’s death, his widow married another Leslie, John, laird of Belcairn.1 George was enrolled in 1608 as a scholar in the Scots College at Rome.2 Father Hunter-Blair pre­ fixes to his brief account of Archangel, translated from Bellesheim, the words ‘ according to Rinuccini,’ and thus 1 Leslie’s Hist. Records, vol. iii. pp. 415-435. 2 1608. ‘ Georgius Lesly Aberdonensis. Deinde sacerdos Capuccinus sub nomine P. Archangelus.' This is on the authority of Rocco da Cesinale (Missioni, vol. iii. p. 407), who quotes the ms. register of the college. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 357 leads the reader to suppose that the archbishop is the authority for this statement, whereas Rinuccini gives no hint of the fact, which is indeed inconsistent with his narrative. Archangel had evidently a gift of speech. Dempster, who died at Bologna, Sept. 1625, describes him briefly as an eloquent preacher, mentions that he had just gone into Scotland, and names a book, D e potestate papce in principes sceculares et in rebus fidei definiendis, which Leslie had written and was preparing to publish. The book, however, does not appear to have been ever printed. Leslie was never superior of the Scottish mission. The Pope had appointed Fathers Leonard and Joseph of Paris, prefects of the Capuchin mission of England and Scotland; and under their authority, three fathers, Anselm, Angel, and Richard, were sent into England, and Epiphanius and Archangel into Scotland. This Epiphanius, Roger Lindsay, was an earnest and hard­ working missionary, who lived as a peasant among the people in the north some years before Archangel’s arrival. No reliance whatever can be placed on the statement, unless it can be confirmed from other sources, that Archangel remained in London until the departure of the ambassador in whose suite he came over. The ambassador referred to can be no other than the Marquis Inojosa, who landed at Dover, June 14th, 1623, and left London again June 1624.1 But in any case, there are traces of Archangels activity in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen towards the end of the year. The period was just then favourable to the Catholics. The missionaries waxed bold. It is said that manifestoes or pasquils were stuck on the church-door in Aberdeen. Some of these may have been the work of Archangel. He certainly wrote some controversial tracts, though none appear to have been preserved to our day. One of these, at least, 1 This lingering in London for twelve months hardly justifies Father Hunter- Blair’s statement, ‘ From London he hurried to Scotland.’ Theking who ex­ pressed his satisfaction with the conduct of Archangel as Spanish interpreter would have been James. Prince Charles was absent from England on his Spanish journey from February 19 to October 5, 1623. The continuator of the legend seems to have forgotten this in his account of the interview of Archangel with Charles in the Isle of Wight, though Charles had, indeed, returned to London some months before the departure of Inojosa and the Capuchin. 358 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE was thought worthy of notice by Andrew Logie, parson of Rayne, who in his work entitled, Cum bono deo. Raine from the clouds upon a choicke [sic] angel, or a returned answer to the common quceritur o f our adversaries, 4 Where was your Church before Luther ? ’ (Aberdeen, 1624), makes reference to some such writing coming into his hands, as 4 another straying leaf with the loins trussed, carrying or bearing this inscription, “ Who want lawful calling are Robbers according to the warrands folio wing,” etc.’ Logie makes a bad pun on the name Leslie; and some prefatory Latin verses in praise of the author* announce Telo hoc Archangelus ipse— Confusus periet; while a marginal note explains that this was George Leslie who elicited from Mr. Logie this learned treatise. In a list of priests and 4 trafficking seminaries ’ about Aberdeenshire, drawn up apparently about 1625, George Leslie is described as 4 Capucian Leslie, commonly called Archangel’ ; and in a similar list of 4the resetters of Seminarists and Jesuits,’ occurs the name of 4 William Leslie, brother to George Leslie the Capucian.’ In March 1626, he sent to Propaganda a report in which he complains of Catholics attending the Protestant sermons, and of their not providing for the missionaries. He thinks it necessary for the Congregation to make certain priests an allowance of 200 florins (Bellesheim, History, iii. p. 77). After a lapse of three or four years, in 1628, Charles issued a proclamation to bishops and ministers to mark down all Papists and report them to the Privy Council twice a year. Excommunications, imprison­ ments, and banishments followed rapidly. Whether it was an outburst of fresh persecution which drove Arch­ angel from the north, or whether he went solely in obedience to the summons of his superiors, to answer the charges brought against him at Rome, is not clear. It is, however, at this moment that light comes to us in the form of an authentic letter from the missionary himself, dated Paris, June 20th, 1630. It is addressed to Colonel Sempill, then at Valladolid. Colonel Sempill was in the confidence of the King of Spain, and a zealous supporter of the Scottish mission. The original of Arch­ angel’s letter was in English, but the copy printed in the THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 359

Records of the Family of Leslie is a re-translation from the Spanish. It fully confirms, in the opinion of Colonel Leslie, ‘ all that is really important’ in the traditional story. I f nothing is ‘ really importanty in the romance but its few grains of truth, that modicum of truth may be said to be here confirmed. But the reader can judge for himself, from the following extracts. The abridg­ ment and extracts given by Father Rocco and Canon Bellesheim unfortunately omit just those passages of the letter which supply the best test of the truth.

‘ The manner I have conversed with heretics, and the method I have practised in Scotland for these last six years in converting souls* will shortly be published and dedicated to His Holiness-—at least I have been advised to do so by some of those who, flying from the calamities and persecutions in our country, have taken refuge in France. I am more inclined to dedicate it to your Excellency. I have, therefore, omitted to give it a foreign appearance for many just reasons. I shall send to your Excellency some books of it just published, by which you will see the method I have employed in my vocation in the country. ‘ I wrote three other treatises in Scotland; two on the vocation of ministers, and one in reply to the reasons which induced a certain noble lady to apostatise from the Catholic faith to the Protestant. These treatises have disposed many to follow the Catholic faith, and many learned persons are of opinion that they should be published, and I could not dedicate them to any person more worthy than your Excellency, whose zeal for the conversion of souls and love of the servants of our faith are so well known . . . as is proved by the pension which, by the care and solicitude of your Excellency, is so liberally distributed among the labourers of the Church, and for which benefit I thank your Excellency with all my heart.’ The writer then intimates that in the dedication of the proposed work he wishes to commemorate his Excellency’s piety and charity, and proceeds:—

‘ In the meantime I beseech your Excellency to be pleased to continue the pension, which you gave me while I was in the mission, to pay the expense of publication, and because, when I return to Italy, I propose getting them published at Vienna, if your Excellency will aid in the expense. ‘ For two reasons I return to Italy; first, because the government of our missions has been changed. Formerly all depended on a General, who sent those of every nation to labour in their own country of which they were subjects. . But now a French Father, 360 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE named Joseph, through the influence of Cardinal Richelieu, obtained from His Holiness the government of all the missions of our order in the east and west . . . so that by this change only Frenchmen are admitted into the missions. . . . ‘ The second reason for my journey to Italy is to exculpate myself from some calumnies which have been imputed to me before the congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. To these calumnies I shall oppose all the Catholic ladies and gentlemen who, flying from the persecution, have arrived in these parts, for the many conversions which God has made by means of me afford no trace of those vile things which they impute to m e; for God has used me as an instrument for the conversion of my step-father [the step-father is never alluded to in Rinuccini’s life], my mother and brothers, and of all the family.’ Archangel then mentions a number of his converts,1 adding:— ‘ I must omit innumerable other persons, both men and women, for there is not a corner of all the kingdom where I have not left the seed of Faith, thanks be to God, the fountain of all good. . . . ‘ But now, who are those who calumniate me ? Are they, perhaps, heretics ? N o ; for these do not frequent the court of Rome. Are they secular Catholics ? No ; because none of these would venture to say that they ever saw in me a trace of levity. Are they, perhaps, priests? I say they are; but let them come to particulars and specify the conversions which they have made, and we shall see if theirs can compete with mine. But enough of this disagreeable matter. ‘ With regard to the present persecution in Scotland it continues and increases every day. It is distressing to see the number of Catholics who, driven from their country, arrive at this part of France, where it would appear that Christian charity is dead. . . . There is at Paris a baroness, widow of the late Baron Crilton Maxwell, whom, after a long imprisonment, they have banished from the kingdom. Hfcr daughters, beautiful girls, remain in Scotland, excommunicated by the ministers, and although the Queen of England has recommended her to the Queen-mother, nothing has been done for her, because charity seems banished from the court of France. I therefore beg to recommend her to your Excellency, because she is a learned, virtuous, and noble lady. There is also a Scotch gentleman, named George Mortimer, a most honourable man, and zealous in the service of God and of his country. He has given me the means to pay for publishing my narrative. May I request you to acknowledge his assistance? I have written thus to your Excellency in a very humble and common 1 The list, naming one or more members of some sixteen families, is quoted at length in Bellesheim’s History. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 361 style, because I know I speak with the common Father of all. Supplicating our Lord to multiply your years, 4 Your Excellency’s most obliged servant and poor relation, ‘ F. A r c h a n g e l L e s l i e , Capuchin.’ The letter is interesting as a statement of facts, and as a revelation of personal character. It is certainly not the letter of a saint rejoicing, as the legendary Arch­ angel rejoiced, in opposition and calumny as giving him fresh opportunities of merit. The criticism on the want of charity at the French court would have come ill from Archangel if it had been just at this time that the queen, with whom the Capuchin’s influence was all powerful, had procured by her good offices the restoration of his mother’s estates. It is also strange to find the real Archangel—far from having his mother’s wealth at his disposal on the mission—being in receipt of a pension from Colonel Sempill. The constant reference to his writings, printed or unprinted, is curious, seeing that nothing beyond this letter is now known to exist. Archangel’s case came before the Propaganda, April 22, 1631, when, on the petition of Father Leonard of Paris, * prefect of the mission of the East and of England,’ and on the testimony of Scottish Catholics, to his ex­ emplary life and his confutation of heretics, ‘per libros publice e d ito s he was acquitted, and permission granted for his return to the mission. The Capuchins at this time held an important position in England. In February, 1630, a few weeks after the date of Arch­ angel’s Paris letter, Fathers Leonard and Joseph of Paris, and ten other Capuchin friars had been established in London, in a lodging adjoining Somerset House, as chaplains of Queen Henrietta Maria. As a matter of prudence, the other Capuchins about the country, and among them Father Epiphanes, were for the time recalled. Epiphanes, however, soon obtained per­ mission to return to Scotland, and it is quite possible that he was the companion of Archangel on his second mission. Of the particulars of this second mission there is no authentic record.1 The Father Ciprien de Gamaches,

1 Pere Richard makes up for the deficiency by transposing the statement of Rinuccini, that Archangel made { more than 3000 converts in eight months,* 362 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE one of Queen Henrietta Maria’s chaplains, wha wrote Memoires de la Mission des Capuciris pres la Reine d!Angleterre, 1630-1669, gives an account of several missionaries of his order who were his predecessors or contemporaries in England or Scotland, and is full of the praises of Epiphanes Lindsay, but says no more of Archangel than that he was one of many who exercised their ministry with much edification and profit, and that his life was written under the name of the Capucin Escossois. W e have, however, a contemporary notice of Leslie’s death and burial from Father William Christie, a Jesuit, who was on the Scottish mission from 1625 to 1642, and in 1650 became Superior of the Scotch College at Douai. ‘H e died,’ wrote Father Christie, 4 in his mothers poor house, just over the river Dee, against the mill o f Aboyne, and, I believe, was buried in ane old ruinous church in the way betwixt that and Kanakyle or Hunthall.’ That is not all that Father Christie has to say. W e get from him the only ray of light which can be thrown upon the reception of the legend of ‘ II Cappuccino Scozzese’ in Scotland. He was writing, November 29, 1653, when two French editions had appeared—but none with the interpolations and continuation—to Father Adam Gordon, then rector of the Scots College at Rome. Rumours seem to have reached Douai that there was some purpose of making a supplement to Rinuccini’s book. Father Christie therefore writes : * As to Capuchin Leslie’s life, it is expedient we quit us of that censure or information, seeing it is odious; and the rumour is that all those in our country, Catholics and heretics, who did know him were scandalised at that first Book, which I wish had not been printed and divulged; nor that ane other be put out, seeing it will more aggravate and augment the rumour of untruths ; so my opinion is there be no more made or amended touching it. Father Thomson can sufficiently inform about the man. H e from its original place at the beginning of the first mission to this later period; and to emphasise the fact, and conceal the trick, he quotes the actual words of his authority, without, of course, their context, in a footnote. THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE 363

was zealous, but fo r the rest I will not write. In his necessity before his death I got the Marchioness of Huntlie to send him ten Jacobuses. He died in his mothers poor house,’ etc. Surely F. Hunter-Blair in editing Bellesheim’s History should have quoted this explicit statement of F. Christie, or at least referred his readers to the supplement of Gordon’s Scotichronicon (Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 573), where the state­ ment is to be found. The Father Thomson, to whom F. Christie refers Father Gordon, was a Conventual Franciscan, then residing in his convent at Rome. Father Thomson had entered the Scots College at Rome in 1602, and perhaps was there with George Leslie, and after joining the Franciscans, was sent by them in 1613 unto Scotland, where he exercised his ministry many years. Banished from Scotland, he became one of Queen Henrietta’s chaplains, and during the Civil War retired finally to Rome. It is evident that Father Christie dreaded some attempt being made in Rome, or elsewhere, under the influence of Father Gordon, to add to the legend. The extraordinary suggestion, already referred to, of the Abb£ Macpherson, that *11 Cappuccino Scozzese’ was not written by Rinuccini but by Father Andrew Leslie, the Jesuit who closed the eyes of Archangel, and that the Jesuits themselves had the intention of publishing a second part if the first had taken well, or if the scandal caused in Scotland by the story, when the Capuchin’s memory was fresh, had not alarmed them, scarcely deserves notice. The Jesuits may have had their faults, but such folly as this was not one of them. From 1631 to 1647, when he was thrown into prison, Andrew Leslie was labouring in the Highlands, and was not likely to have amused himself with this thoroughly Italian com­ position, or to have had the audacity to get it printed, under the archbishop’s nose at Macerata. There is no ground, whatever, for doubting Rinuccini’s authorship, nor would it ever have been doubted by any one who knew the bibliography of the book. Moreover, there are passages in the diplomatic correspondence of Rinuc- 364 THE LEGEND OF ARCHANGEL LESLIE cini which curiously resemble in style the language and sentiment of the biography.1 The opposition of prudent men to the dissemination of the legend accounts for its never appearing in English as long as that opposition could make itself felt. The Scottish Jesuit, himself a Leslie, who compiled the Laurus Leskeana, printed at Gratz in 1692, says that the illustrious author of Arch­ angel’s life appears at times ‘ more anxious to display his eloquence than to state facts in accordance with truth.’ This was perhaps as far as a Jesuit and a Leslie dared go in print. An attempt to bring out an English transla­ tion was made, it seems, in 1764. A t least, a manuscript of that date, entitled The Wonderful Life o f the Count Leisley, called in religion F r . Archangel, formerly belonged to the English Benedictine convent at Cambrai, as appears from the m s. catalogue of their library.2 The courage of the translator may have failed him, or the prudence of his superiors prevented the story going to press. It was obviously the character not of Rinuccini but of the Capuchin missionary, the real author of the greater part of the fiction, which was at stake. There is, however, no longer any impediment in the way of the legend. It has gathered round itself a sacred tradition. A ‘ caterva auctorum gravium’ protects it. It has been dedicated to an English earl and a French duchess, who should surely have known the truth; it has received innumerable approbations from bishops and doctors and inquisitors of the faith in all parts of Europe. They have pronounced it thoroughly sound in faith and morals, edifying and admirable. The pious archbishop’s prayer has been, in large measure, fulfilled. His book has been welcomed in London and Philadelphia. Men who would now presume to cast a doubt on the story would be ready, says Father Rocco da Cesinale, to place Job and Tobit on a level with Don Quixote. Magnum est mendacium et prcevalet.

1 See, for example, pp. 84-85 of The Embassy in Ireland of Mons. G. B. Rinuccini. Translated by Annie Hutton. Dublin, 1873. 2 Information kindly communicated to the writer by Mr. Joseph Gillow. ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND: A SEQU EL1

T he truly Admirable and Astonishing Life of Archangel Leslie, which Mr. Cunninghame Graham has so well sketched in a recent number of the Nineteenth Century, deserves even more than the attention he has given to it. It does not merely appear as the biography of a Scottish nobleman of great wealth and brilliant gifts, who for con­ science sake abandoned the religion of his parents and all worldly prospects to embrace the hard life of a Capuchin missionary, but it is a narrative full of the most romantic adventures, cruel persecutions, heroic virtues, and hair­ breadth escapes. It purports, moreover, to come to us on the authority of an Italian prelate of high reputation, John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, known in this country as the Apostolic Nuncio sent into Ireland in the troublous times of 1645-50. The pious archbishop wrote, it seems, with the express purpose of exhibiting before an unbelieving world a model of Catholic heroism; and he made the good prophecy that his little book would take wings and fly into all corners of the world. Mr. Cunninghame Graham refers to a * wealth of editions * of this book, and specifies five. But in fact nine times that number are known. Eighteen editions have been issued in Italy alone—at Macerata, Cremona, Bologna, Milan, Venice, Brescia, Florence, Modena, and Rome. French versions have appeared at Paris, Rouen, Mons, and Lille; Spanish versions at Madrid, Portuguese at Lisbon, Dutch or Flemish at Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp, and German at Costanz and Bregenz—not to speak of a number of abridgments and summaries in Biographical Dictionaries and Bibliothecce Scriptorum. The last flight of this ‘ true history’ . . . ‘ replete with holy examples and 1 Nineteenth Century, November 1893. 366 ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND: sweet lessons of piety’ was across the Atlantic in 1 8 6 4 , when it appeared at Philadelphia under the title of Count Leslie, or the Triumph o f Filial Piety. Mr. Graham, in his rapid sketch of Father Arch­ angel’s singular career, lets drop here and there some suspicions as to ‘ the absolute truthfulness of the com­ piler.’ Yet, on the whole, certain indications scattered throughout the book convince him that the Capuchin was a simple-minded, honest fellow, doing what he thought his duty at all hazards. Mr. Graham adds, ‘ Though Padre Ajofrin never quotes a single word Archangel says, I fancy I can see him just as plainly as if in modern fashion he had spoken pages and never done a thing* worth doing *; and he ends his article echoing the words of the Spanish biographer, Pretiosa in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum Ejus. I also fancy I can see Archangel plainly—but rather speaking pages of blarney and imposture, quite in modern fashion, and doing little; and I have made bold elsewhere1 to conclude a paper cm the same subject with the comment, Magnum est mend- acium et prccvalet. In order then to present Archangel from this other point of view, with as little repetition as possible, I purpose to tell the story of Rinuccini’s book. Habent sua fata libellL Mr. Graham has, as a biographer, related the stirring adventures of his hero. My more humble and prosaic task will be rather that of the bibliographer—to discover the sources and to trace the growth and fortunes of a fiction in print. It is, I think, a curious piece of literary history, and not without instruction. First, however, a few words must be said of the man, George Leslie, as he is made known to us by authentic documents. He was the son of James Leslie of Peter- stone and Jane Wood (Selvia in the foreign narratives), and was born in or near Aberdeen. On the death of James his widow married another Leslie, laird of Bei- cairn. In 1 6 0 8 George entered the Scots College at Rome, and afterwards, becoming a Capuchin friar, was sent as Father Archangel upon the Scottish mission m 1 6 2 3 . He seems to have had remarkable fluency of 1 Scottish Review, voL xviii. p. .7,7. A SEQUEL 367 speech, a lively imagination, inordinate vanity, and plausible manners. His parents, both Protestants, ap­ pear to have been in comparatively poor circumstances. Archangel wrote a few tracts which are no longer extant, and made several converts among noble families, which gave him a reputation for zeal and controversial skill. Charges were, however, brought against him of levity of conduct unbecoming a religious, and he was summoned by Propaganda to give an account of himself. On his way to Rome through Paris (June 1630) he wrote a letter to his patron, Colonel Sempill, who represented the interests of Scottish Catholics in Spain. From this letter, querulous, boastful, and by no means savouring of sanctity, it appears that Archangel was in receipt of a pension from the colonel, and he now begs from him further assistance to pay the cost of some books he intended to print. At Rome he was triumphantly acquitted o f the charges brought against him and was made guardian of a convent of his order at Monte Georgio, where he first made the acquaintance of his fervent admirer the Archbishop of Fermo. This was in 1631. From Monte Georgio he was transferred to Ripa Transone, and shortly afterwards sent into Scotland again. Of this second mission there is no authentic record. He died in 1637 and was buried, not on the borders of England under the mysterious circumstances recorded in the legend, but, as we learn from the letter of a Jesuit who knew hiih, * he died in his mother’s poor house just over the river Dee, and was buried in an old ruinous church on the way betwixt that and Kanakyle or Hunthall.’ How then did this man come to be known through­ out Europe as the Count Leslie, half-brother of the Baron de Torry, residing in Monymusk House, the mansion of his mother the countess, and having the use of her great wealth ? How did he come to be proclaimed by holy bishops, provincials, and learned bio­ graphers as * the most illustrious personage that Scotland has produced,’ ‘ a veritable pole-star arisen in this our age of the soul’s night,’ 4 a spectacle to all Europe,’ and truly ‘ a saint if any one could be canonised by the popular voice ’ ? 368 ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND :

It has not been hitherto observed by bibliographers or critics that the Life in the fuller shape in which it has been narrated by various compilers for the last two centuries (or, say, since 1680) is derived from three— or, if we are to include its most recent development, from four— different sources: and these need to be carefully discriminated. The earliest editions, in Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese (1644-1660)— all of them now somewhat rare — contain simply the original narrative of Rinuccini, and this is based exclusively upon information given by word of mouth to the archbishop by Leslie himself. Rinuccini may have been rhetorical, sentimental, and credulous, but there is no reason to doubt his honesty or the fidelity of his report. W e have a pretty picture of the scene in the garden of the Capuchin convent at Ripa Transone, where the legend had its birth. The archbishop, seated on a rustic bench, with his friend Vagnozzo Pica, superior of the Oratory, listened with rapturous attention to the unfold­ ing of the tale. Rinuccini held the hand of Father Pica on the one side and the Capuchin’s on the other. ‘ The servant of God (he writes), after a little prelude full of reli­ gious modesty, began to narrate his life. He spoke of his father's testament, the inheritance that had been bequeathed to him, of his journey to Paris, the beginnings of his conversion and the consequent displeasure of his tutor and mother, the threats and cruelties to which they subjected him, and how, finally, he was deprived of his property and abandoned by his parents. He continued his discourse by a narrative of his journey to Rome and his vocation to the religious life; and then paused awhile to speak of the happiness he enjoyed when he obtained, through the kindness of the Pope, per­ mission to enter among the Capuchins. Father Pica expressed only admiration at these triumphs, but was beginning to foretell some great disgrace to the mother, when Archangel with a smile said, “ Allow me to continue my narrative.” He told of all the anger and distress of the mother after she had sent her other son into Italy, and described at length the conversion of his brother. I was the first to shed tears, and Father Pica, putting aside all the bitterness he had conceived against the mother, could not refrain from weep­ ing. But the Father Archangel, resuming his natural gaiety,’ etc. The narrative was thus frequently interrupted by the sobs and sighs of the listeners. * Seeing we were both A SEQUEL 369 touched with tenderness, he gave us time/ says the Archbishop; and as Archangel had said little of his mother’s life after her conversion, he was eagerly asked, ‘ Did she persevere? Have you news of her?’ The temptation to the Scotsman here seems irresistible. He again gained a little time, and related the incidents which finally determined the Archbishop to commit the history to writing. He told how his mothers estates were confiscated, and how she was reduced to earn a miserable livelihood by needlework in a poor cottage; how he, in Paris, using his influence with the French Court, had obtained letters to the King of England, who restored her to her house and lands; how, meanwhile, moved by filial compassion, he had returned to Scotland, in the disguise of a gardener, to find her hiding-place; and how, with difficulty evading the guards who stopped him at the gates of Monymusk, he walked through the town three times, crying, 4 Greens! buy my greens! ’ in vain. A t this point Father Pica’s emotions became beyond control. 41 can bear this no longer— I shall die,” he cried, 4 if I do not hear quickly how all this ended. These herbs, will they not be irrigated by heavenly dew? O truth, which puts to shame the fables of antiquity! The Archbishop seized his friend’s hand and implored him to keep silence to the end of the story. When the end came, Rinuccini drew Father Pica aside and engaged him to assist in putting what they had heard on paper,, and to use every opportunity of eliciting from Archangel further information. 4 Who knows,’ he added, 4 but that in these days of fabulous romances this true story may not have a good sale ? ’ Now it may be well here to point out that the rela­ tions of the hero to Monymusk House belong to the very essence of this autobiography. If we are to believe Archangel, the house was the home of his boyhood, the property of his mother, the scene of his visit to her in the guise of a gay cavalier, the centre of his missionary triumphs, and his own prospective inheritance. Remove Monymusk from the story and the whole falls as a house of cards, and with it goes Archangel’s reputation as ‘ a simple-minded Capuchin ’ or an honest man. But 2 A 370 ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND : it is absolutely false that Monymusk at any time be­ longed to a Leslie, The house was built by Duncan Forbes in 1554, and remained in the possession of the Forbes family— strict Protestants— till 1710. A t the time of Archangel’s exploits it was inhabited by William Forbes ‘ of Monymusk,’ who was created a baronet by Charles the First in 1626. After this it is scarcely worth while to ask if it be? true that Archangel, attired as a courtier, acted for twelve months as interpreter to the Spanish Ambassador after his arrival in London, and received the thanks of the King (James the First) for the excellent manner in which he had discharged his duties.1 A t least no state­ ment which rests on the unsupported word of Archangel can be trusted. Very soon after the scene in the convent garden, Archangel, as has been said, went once more into Scot­ land. He bade adieu to the Archbishop, started for Leghorn, and thence wrote to him a letter which Rm-* uccini prints. Two years later, the Archbishop tells us, he received news of the missionary’s death (1637). More; than this he could not learn. He was most anxious to get information regarding the events of this second mission, or at least particulars of his friend’s lasft moments. ‘ For that end,’ he writes, ‘ what diligence did I not use? I made inquiries of all the Scotsmen who were then in Italy. I read, with unusual attention, the registers at Rome, and letters from England,’ but alt was in vain. He must be content to let his book remain imperfect. Rinuccini’s II Cappuccino Scozzese was accordingly published at Macerata and Bologna in 1644, seven years after Archangel’s death. It was reprinted at Rome in; January 1645, two months before the author started upon his Irish Nunciatura. Several other Italian issues followed. Meanwhile, Francois Barrault, Procurator- General of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, then residing at Rome, made a literal translation into French? from Rinuccini’s manuscript, and had it published at

1 The Marquis Inojosa is perhaps intended. He arrived in England as Extraordinary Ambassador, June 14, 1623, and left again in June 1624. A SEQUEL 371 Paris in 1650, with a dedicatory epistle to Isabelle Ang^lique de Montmorency, Duchesse de Chastillon, and with portraits of the Duchess and the Capuchin ; and of this edition there were also several reprints. Antonio Vasquez, of the Clerks Regular, who had translated, from the Italian of Bacci, the life of St. Philip Neri, as if he were in search of the strongest contrast to the character of that saint, translated Rinuccini’s book into Spanish (Madrid, 1647). The first Portuguese version, by Diego Cameiro, a Brazilian from Rio Janeiro, was published at Lisbon in 1657. The marvellous tale could not fail to soon reach the ears of Archangel’s fellow-missionaries and others who knew him in Scotland; and the reader may wonder what was thought of it there. Fortunately, our curiosity can to some extent be satisfied. If some yielded to the temptation to propagate the fiction, good men were dis­ gusted and ashamed. There happens to be preserved a letter of Father Christie, S.J., a missionary in Scotland from 1625 to 1642, and afterwards Superior of the Scots College at Douai, which touches on the very point. He writes, November 29, 1653, to the rector of the Scots College at Rome, expressing alarm at a report which had reached him of some purpose to make additions to Rinuccini’s book. Rinuccini himself died in the December of that year. Father Christie spoke of the project as ‘ odious,’ and added : The rumour is that all those in our country, Catholics and heretics, who did know him [Archangel] were scandalised at that first Book, which I wish had not been printed and divulged ; nor that ane other be put out, seeing it will more aggravate and augment the rumours of untruths; so my opinion is there be no more made or amended touching it. Father Thomson [a Franciscan living in Rome] can sufficiently inform about the man. H e was zealous, but fo r the rest I will not write. In his necessity before his death I got the Marchioness of Huntlie to send him ten Jacobuses. He died in his mother’s poor house just over the river Dee. Strange to say, the remonstrances of the prudent Jesuit were of no avail. The threatened additions appeared at Rouen in 1660, under the title: L e Capudn Escossois. Histoire merveilleuse et tres veritable 372 ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND:

arrivee de nostre temps. Traduite de TItalien de M on- seigneur VArchevesque et Prince de Ferme, Nonce de sa Sainctete en lrlande. Reveu et corrige en cet derniere edition. The edition is also provided with an entirely new portrait. The work is ingeniously done. Rinuccini’s concluding paragraphs, recounting his failure to get further information, are simply struck out, and the narrative continues without a break, misleading the reader, who must suppose that the whole is from the same author. There is no editorial reference to the supplementary matter or to its sources. But besides the additional chapter there are a number of suspicious alterations and interpolations throughout the text. The Capuchin is exalted to the rank of ‘ Count,’ and his half- brother becomes the e Baron de Torry.’ The story of the second mission is given in the fullest detail. Archangel’s shipwreck a t‘ St. Calpin ’ in the Isle of W ight; his pro­ vidential meeting with his brother; the arrest of both under suspicion as spies for examining the fortifications of Newport; their subsequent release on Archangel making himself known to King Charles, who recognised him with joy and insisted on his taking up his abode in the palace at Newport, where the King was then keeping his Court; the dispatch of the missionary by sea to Aberdeen, with special privileges accorded by the grate­ ful monarch to the Leslies of Monymusk, who, on account of their illustrious services to the Crown, were alone in Scotland permitted the free exercise of their religion and the services of a Catholic chaplain. Finally, it is here that we read of Archangel’s too great success in preaching, his angry recall by the King, his death by the Borders on his journey southwards, and his burial on the haunted mountain-side. The new romancer had well caught the spirit of the original. But it is not easy to guess his name or even his nationality. The dedicatory epistle is addressed by Francis Clifton, a royalist exile, to George Digby, second Earl of Bristol, who had recently been received into the Catholic Church at Ghent. But there is nothing in this preface to indicate Clifton’s responsibility for the story. Nor does the new matter appear to have been the invention A SEQUEL 373 of a foreigner, though the English mistakes are ridiculous enough. For instance, Charles i. never kept Court or resided in the Isle of Wight at the time referred to (1633-1637). The additions in question were not known in Italy for some years after the publication of this Rouen edition. On the whole, they look like the jeu desprit of some graceless Scot abroad. The titles ‘ Count Leslie ’ and 4 Baron de Torry ’ seem at least to $ suggest a Scottish author. Archangel in his tale to Rinuccini never gave himself the title of count, and he can hardly have thought of it. The first Count Leslie was Walter, son of John Leslie, tenth baron of Bal- quhairn, who was created a count of the Holy Roman Empire by Ferdinand hi. in 1637, the year of Arch­ angel’s death. The barony of Torry belonged to no Leslie, but it is curious to observe that it did belong to a Forbes, the real owner of Monymusk, and remained the property of that family until 1705, when Sir William Forbes sold it to the city of Aberdeen. The legend in its new and enlarged form proved a great success. It spread rapidly in France and gradually made its way into other Continental countries. The Paris edition of 1682 came out with a new title: U H ktoire et la Vie merveilleuse du Comte de Lesley, gentilhomme Escossois, Capucin, and with again a new portrait. Meanwhile, in ignorance of the French amplified version, an enterprising son of St. Francis in Rome, Eleuterio dAlatri, composed a drama, 11 Cappuccino Scozzese in Scena, which was published by his brother, Signor Francesco Rozzi d’Alatri, in 1673. The first scene is laid in Monumusco Villa, and the second in Edemberg Citta in Scotia. The impious chaplain appears as Lurcanio, the devils sing a hymn to Pluto, and Calvin himself speaks through the mouth of Beelzebub. The Roman friar goes to work seriously. He is distressed with the difficulty of preserving the unities, he gives detailed stage instructions and hints as to costume. But the portion of his work which concerns us here is the short preface, which contains first a brief summary of Rinuccini’s book, and secondly some supplementary 374 ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND: information said to have been derived from a relative of Archangel, William Leslie, then one of the household of Cardinal Barberini, regarding the second mission. Nothing seems known of the Isle of Wight episode or of the voyage to Aberdeen, but Archangel is said to have passed from Italy to Edinburgh, where there occurred the incident of the martyrdom of the sick 4 Baron Daltay ’ and his son by the enraged Presbyterians, while Arch- * angel, who had just administered to the Baron the last sacraments, made his escape through the window. The story told thus, more than forty years after the event, may be much exaggerated or even without foundation, but it has the singular merit of being the only romantic incident in the published Lives which comes as a genuine tradition from Scotland, and is not a deliberate invention. Mr. Cunninghame Graham confesses himself puzzled by ‘ Daltay/ but this name, though constantly repeated by the later biographers, is a mere misprint in the preface to the drama. In the text of the play, and in the mouth of some devil, it appears more correctly as e Dalgaty,’ and under this form Mr. Graham will have no difficulty in recognising a laird of Dalgety, or a member of the Hay family. During the eighteenth century the Life in its most ample shape, combining Rinuccini’s original, the Rouen additions, and the story told by D Alatri, took deep root in foreign Catholic literature. It passed into Belgium, Holland, and Germany. Bernardus de Bononia, who in his Bibliotheca Scriptorum Capuccinorum (Venice, 1747) gives more than ordinary space to this shining light of his order, could well appeal to the ‘ crowd of grave authors ’ who testified to the facts. Yet here and there were heard some whispers of doubt. Even this same Father Bernard appears to have felt that all was not right about the Isle of Wight, for he shipwrecks Archangel on a nameless island, and drops all reference to King Charles and his Court. Father Timothy of Brescia, also, in the interest­ ing preface to his second and enlarged edition of 1740, Istoria compiuta e non piu veduta in Italia, notices some sceptical rurpours, but only to brush them aside with the assurances, which we may not be disposed to question, A SEQUEL 375 that Rinuccini’s veracity is unimpeachable, and that the marvels of the story do not surpass those recorded of Joseph, the Viceroy of Egypt. All this time England and Scotland alone had looked askance at the legend. But in the present generation it seems to have been universally accepted in the highest quarters as if consecrated by a venerable tradition. Bishop Raess, of Strassburg, in the eleventh volume of his great biographical work, Die Convertiten seit der Reformation (Freiburg, 1873), has done it full honour. Rocco da Cesinale, who, as an eminent theologian, attended the Vatican Council, made special historical investigations on the subject in preparation for his Storia dette Missioni dei Cappuccini (3 vols., Rome, 1872). He had also, when in London, made personal inquiries, and was satisfied that there are still traces of Archangel’s chapel in Monymusk House. He has no patience with the sceptics, who might as well throw doubt on the Book of Job or the Story of Tobit. With such learned support, the legend, in its richest colours and adorned with all the graces of pious rhetoric, was able for the first time to get a foothold in the Catholic literature of this country through the pages of the Annals of the Francis­ cans.1 It has at last been welcomed by the learned Benedictines of Fort Augustus. In Father Hunter Blair’s translation of Bellesheim’s History o f the Catholic Church o f Scotland, 2 several pages are devoted to the dis­ tinguished missionary, eulogising his ‘ fruitful labours,’ ‘ ardent nature,’ and ‘ almost unlimited influence,’ the translator being content to add the odd and insufficient note that ‘ many details in Rinuccini’s biography [viz. the details of ‘ Monymusk ’ and the ‘ Count ’] are evidently more romantic than correct.’ The vitality of the story seems to be now proof against all profane censures. The light shafts of ridicule cast upon it by such writers as Lord Hailes, Robert Chambers in his Biographical Dictionary, or Colonel Leslie in his Records, appear only to inspire the bio­ graphers with new and bolder developments. P&re Richard, whose inventive faculties seem hardly inferior 1 Vols. iii.-v., London, 1879-1881. 2 Vol. iv., 1890. 376 ARCHANGEL LESLIE OF SCOTLAND to those of Archangel himself, put forth, only ten years ago, Le Comte Georges Leslie, on une Mission dans la Grande Bretagne in a veritable edition de luoce, printed for the Society of St. Augustine in a manner worthy of the Facultes Catholiques de Lille. Like Father Rocco, P&re Richard professes to have made independent researches, and he presents us with what he calls an Epilogue. W e here learn that on the death of Arch­ angel the King sent to the brothers Leslie a special messenger to give expression to his regret at the loss of so distinguished a subject. The Barons de Torry, who inherited their half-brother’s property, now agreed to consecrate the Manor of Monymusk as a centre of the Catholic mission. As long as Charles lived the barons were unmolested, but the impious Cromwell put the mansion to the flames; the three brothers— for they have become three— were driven to the mountains, and when they died without issue the House of Torry became extinct. In this fashion can the life of a ‘ Servant of God ’ be manufactured and a monstrous fiction be propagated in our so-called critical age. Prcevalet, and probably, in spite of Father Christie, Colonel Leslie, or this Review, prcevalebit. INTERNATIONAL MORALITY1

O n the first sight of this title it may occur to some readers that, like the Irishman who was assigned the task of writing an essay on ‘ Snakes in Ireland,’ I might con­ veniently exhaust the subject, as he did, mutatis mutandis, in three words: ‘ There is none.’ Yet, if only in courtesy to his examiners, that gentleman might have protracted his discussion by inquiring whether, at least, there were no creatures in the country bearing some resemblance to these reptiles; or, if there were none, what were the causes of their absence— which would have led to some curious geological speculations; and, finally, it might have been permissible to ask what would be the probable effect on the fauna and flora of the country if, in some future time, the reptiles aforesaid were to be there evolved or imported. On similar lines we may speculate tentatively upon the morals of nations, a subject which— unlike the question of the snakes— is one of great difficulty, of great importance, and of fascinating human interest. First, then, is there such a thing as International Morality? or, rather, should nations, or can nations, in their intercourse with one another, regulate their conduct by the same rules of morality which govern the relations of individuals ? If there is any difference in the respec­ tive codes of morality, in what does the difference con­ sist, and what is the cause of the difference ? W e are not now concerned with such logical differ­ ences as may be found in the fact that a corporation cannot be said to have a conscience, or that the actions of the State are not elicited by any predominant motive upon which we can lay our finger, as in the case of a private person. An Act of Parliament, or a decision of the Cabinet, may be the issue of a multitude of conflict- 1 The New Review, October 1897. 378 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY ing or contradictory motives, making it difficult to fix the responsibility or estimate the ethical value of the result. One member may vote for war with Turkey solely from horror of the infidel, another from compassion for the oppressed Armenian, a third to obtain a hold over Constantinople, and a fourth ‘ to dish the W higs/ and so on. These, and similar difficulties of divided responsi­ bility, may constitute one of the several reasons why public bodies act, or seem to act, less conscientiously than individuals, and if the question before us were concerned with a single public act, such difficulties would have to be taken into account, but they may be elimin­ ated when we are dealing with the international acts of centuries all over the globe, and we shall therefore regard the ethical character of the State’s action as if it had emanated from one mind and one will. Again, we are not discussing the relations of the State towards its subjects, or vice versa. Here undoubtedly exist reciprocal moral obligations, rights, and duties, though their extent and nature may be variously estimated, and accordingly we attribute to the State all sorts of natural virtues and vices, and even such theological qualities as Sabbath breaking, Bible-loving, God-fearing so far as the legisla­ tion appears to favour or oppose these dispositions. Nor is there any question here of what is called National Character, or the moral characteristics which may dis­ tinguish the mass of the people generally. W e are at present concerned exclusively with the relations of one Sovereign and independent State as a whole with another such State as a whole—‘ Sovereign and independent States * — and therefore we do not use the word ‘ nation ’ in the popular sense in which we speak, for example, of the Irish nation, for Ireland can have no international relations. The native States of India were once nations, but are now so no longer. The several sovereign States of North America comprising the Union are similarly not ‘ nations,’ in the sense of this paper, for they are not independent. In fact, the integrity and perfection of a nation is to be constitutionally capable of fighting. It cannot hold free intercourse with other nations until it can follow up speech with blows. INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 379

It is at once obvious that the field of international morality is a very narrow one. Except as a pleasantry we can hardly think in this connection of the evangelical virtues of charity, mercy, forgiveness, humility, or any sort of altruism. The kind of virtues in any way practicable or to be expected are, let us say, justice or honesty, fidelity to word and treaty, truth. W e may add two qualities, which may or may not be virtues, and which may be useful to a burglar— prudence and courage. Or, regarding such moral international acts on the negative side, we may take as a measure the primitive prohibitions of the Hebrew decalogue, four of which may certainly be laid upon nations in their dealings with one another: ‘ Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not bear false witness or lie; thou shalt not covet.’ The bare enumeration unavoidably smacks of irony— but this by the way. Some writers would restrict the possible ethical action of States within narrower limits than are here indicated. Lord Lytton, for example, addressing the Glasgow University in 1888, remarks: ‘ First of all, the subjects of private morals, that is individuals, differ from the subjects of public morals, that is nations, so widely, that hardly a proposi­ tion applicable to the one can be properly applied to the other. In the next place, of the classes of obligations which constitute private morals, only one, namely justice, has a place in public morals; and the sort of justice which finds its place in public morals is totally different from the justice which relates to individuals. . . . The only justice to be recognised here consists mainly in moderation and kindly prudence' A critic of Lord Lytton, substantially agreeing with him but objecting to the curious qualification 4 kindly prudence,’ writes:— 4 Justice within the State involves impartiality in dealing with competing claims of individuals, whereas the State is said to act justly towards neighbouring States if it is prudent, i.e. looks after its own i n t e r e s t s No one will care to deny that in this sense nations, as a rule, act towards each other with the perfection of justice. Extending* however, the possible ethical acts between nation and nation as far as may be conceivable, and interpreting 380 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY them as we do the acts of individuals, it is necessary to ask— in what measure have they been put in practice in times past or are they being practised now ? It would seem that the nation in its public acts ought to stand at the highest possible level of ethical conduct. The representatives and spokesmen through whom the State speaks in international dealings are picked men of the community, men of wisdom, moral culture, and responsibility, Cabinet Ministers and Ambassadors, and if such virtues as justice, honour, truth, fidelity were anywhere to be practised in a notable or heroic degree, it might be expected from these men acting in their repre­ sentative character. But, on the contrary, statecraft and diplomacy are everywhere bywords of reproach, mean­ ing lying, deception, and intrigue. Indeed, it cannot be denied that the international history of civilised States appears to be a record of perpetual selfishness, ambition, and greed, involving a policy of treachery and injustice which necessarily provokes constant outbreaks of violence and bloodshed. This state of things, which needs explanation, led at the dawn of modern times a certain school of Italian or Florentine statesmen, who had a habit of regarding facts as they appeared to be and not as one would like them to be, to use the language of despair. Guicciardini, in his Dialogues, quotes Bernardo del Nero to Capponi: * This advice may appear cruel and unconscientious, and so in truth it is . . . and for this reason thy great-grandfather Gino wrote in those Ricordi of his, that the Council of Ten for War should always be composed of persons who loved their country better than their souls, because it is impossible to regulate Governments and States according to the precepts o f Christian law.’ Moreover, it appeared to these thinkers that, whereas among individuals vice in the long-run is rarely triumphant or even unpunished, in the case of nations, as a rule, it is the other way. The greatest political successes and the best results to civilisa­ tion seem to fall to the strong and cautious robber. ‘ The cruelties and tricks of Louis xi. initiated the unity and greatness of France. Ferdinand the Catholic, a master of deceit, founded the new monarchy of Spain,’ and so INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 381 through a long enumeration of such successful im­ moralities, as we should call them, proceeds that historical artist who delights to paint the nude in an unconven­ tional manner, and makes you blush from his too gross adherence to nature, Machiavelli. As to England, the policy which may be said to have preserved, not only in England herself, but in Scotland and indeed Europe, Protestantism and liberty, if they are good things; the policy which created British maritime and commercial supremacy, if that be a good thing; which virtually led to the Union of the Crowns under James vi., and put a stop to the fratricidal wars of centuries, if that too be good, was the policy of Anne Boleyn’s daughter, of whom Mr. Green writes: * Nothing is more revolting and nothing is more characteristic of the Queen than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth was without a peer in Christendom.’ Machiavelli, who however did not live to see this model of successful political craft, exclaims: ‘ Of what avail, then, to imagine ideal Governments that have never been and can never be ? Of what use to recommend a course of policy that is followed by none, nor ever has been followed, and that would prove the ruin o f him who would follow it' ‘ Earth is sick,’ cries Wordsworth, ‘ and Heaven is weary of the hollow words, which States and kingdoms utter, when they talk of Truth and Justice.’ But the case is not so weak as to need strong language. That a difference between personal and national morals exists, and is one not of degree only but of principle, is virtually admitted by men of the most opposed schools of political thought. When John Bright failed to recognise the glories of the Pax Britannica, established in India on the ruins of a hundred native States, and denounced British rule as the result of ‘ ambition, conquest, and crime,’ Sir James Stephen, indignantly spurning this ‘ view of the commonplace shopkeeper intensified by the prejudices of the Quaker,’ maintained that ‘ ambition was the incentive to all manly virtues, and conquest an essential factor in the building up of all nations.’ ‘ Justice without force,’ he adds (and 382 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY force here stands for a great deal), * means the pursuit of unattainable ideals.’ * There are acts,’ he says elsewhere, ‘ of which the justice and virtue cannot be disproved, and which no man ever ventures to propose to a nation. An unexpressed conviction pervades mankind that the ordinary rules o f morality do not quite reach the case o f national acts Why not? Unfortunately, this very able criminal lawyer and essayist, who constantly hovers about the subject, never ventures upon a definite answer. ‘ Morality has its limits,’ he says, and he takes refuge in ‘ mystery.’ ‘ The question as to what is right or wrong for a nation to do depends upon the further question as to what a nation is and for what purposes it exists, and of this we know exceedingly little, and our habits o f thought do not en­ courage sp e c u la tio n It is to be feared, however, that our habits of thought thereby dangerously tend to en­ courage self-delusion and cant. In spite, then, of all such reprehensible habits, let us put this further question: ‘ What may be the cause of the differences referred to ? ’ Assuming, then, that this diversity in the moral standards is an evil, we may trace it back to the very birth of nations. The State#is evolved by a natural process, as it were, from within. Men and women increase and multiply, and in time their gregarious or social instincts prompt them to cohere, organise, and form a Government—that is, a State. With the State come law, order, harmony— making for righteousness. The State is self-sufficient; and there is no intrinsic reason why there ever should be more than one. But the moment you get a plurality of States, each claiming to be sovereign, free, and independent, that moment you get anarchy in germ, and a kind of anarchy in which morality, as the private citizen understands it, can take no root. No doubt such separate nations arise under the pressure of outward circumstances — the barriers of mountain and sea isolating groups of mankind and resulting in different languages and religions— so that these nations spring up, here and there, the one scarcely INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 383 knowing of the others existence; and as long as these natural barriers effectually keep them asunder and give to each room for free movement within their own bounds, there cannot be said to be anarchy— only free and whole­ some individuality. But as soon as these sovereign and independent nations come into close contact, where is the security for peace and order? Reasonable beings thus situated, as> for instance, settlers in some new territory, come to terms, fprm a society, appoint or find a government or sovereign, and between them pay for the policeman. Nations— which we have agreed to regard as rational and moral units— have not done, and won’t do anything of the sort. They recognise no common good. Each is an end to itself. Nations as nations are wanting in the gregarious and social instincts which are the foundations of morality. In a word, among men, sympathy makes morals. Whereas nations, in their intercourse with nations, know next to nothing of sympathy, and therefore have next to nothing of morals. But I may go too far in personifying nations, and you may object. As the government of the nation is, after all, composed of men* and even good men, what has become of their sympathy ? The answer must be, that it is neutralised or swallowed up by that virtue, vice, or passion which has no place whatever in the private relations of man and man, but usurps the highest place in the relations of States— Patriotism. Patriotism, the noblest fruit of national self-assertion, a passion stronger sometimes than even human love or religion, is at the basis of international activity. It is the very negation of international sympathy and the glorification of National Egoism. Patriotism is, moreover, not mere love of country. It is. or tends to become, an heroic, quasi-supernatural act of faith, by which a man steadfastly believes that his own country is the best of all countries and has a mission or destiny or a potentiality to dominate over others, so that the common good of humanity, if the idea of such a common good is ever reached, is identified with the good of one’s own country. Thus, the good man who enters the Council Chamber of nations puts off* his human 384 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY

sympathy and puts on Patriotism. Hence a direct opposition between the sources of private and inter­ national morality. The origo mali is the claim of in­ dependent existence. This is the original blot, the International Original Sin, for which, as yet, there has been revealed no effectual Baptism. Again, the interests of these surging, overlapping, hungry nations necessarily clash, and disputes arise. They have, in their dealings with one another, no law, no judge, no superior; and their rudimentary morals— such as they are— have no sanction. Their only appeal is to brute force. So that, finally, every powerful nation becomes a standing menace to its neighbour, and a perpetual provocation to breaches of the peace. Not Peace— as the jurists would have us believe— but War, actual war, or preparation for war, or dread of war (in the words of the moderate Sir Thomas More, ‘ beastly war ’), constitutes the normal international relations. Treaties of peace are, for the most part, extorted by violence at the mouth of the cannon. Treaties of amity are the seeking of allies or fellow-combatants in the impending struggle. In the language of the newspapers of to­ day : 4 The dual alliance has divided Europe into two hostile camps ’ ; and yet we are supposed to be at peace ! This is surely an anarchical condition of things, necessarily resulting, however, from the first principles of multiple national existence, and incompatible with the rules of morality as between man and man. Then for actual injustice or illegality lying at the very root of these relations— take, first, the question of Dominion. What right has any one nation to appro­ priate to itself a portion of the globe and say, ‘ Here I am lord and master,’ and bar out the rest of the world ? The private ownership of land is held with the consent of the community— or, if the community no longer consents, it (the ownership) will go— and it is protected and safe­ guarded so long by the law and police. But whatever theorists may say, there is no such real 4 recognition ’ on the part of nations. ‘ As a matter of fact,’ writes a learned American professor, commenting on Fichte’s Science o f Rights (and I quote him not now for his INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 385 inferences but for his statement of the fact), not a single State recognises the possessions of the other, but only awaits an opportunity to appropriate them, and the ground of this is that a legal relation is possible only between individuals, but not between States when such States assume to be absolute bodies. From this universal uncertainty of [national] property in all countries . . . arises the unlawfulness of all States which do not embrace the possibility of annexing the whole globe, or of uniting the whole human race under one form of government.’ Then take the question of war already touched upon. What sort of ethical justice is there in the mode of settling disputes as to ownership of bits of territory, payment of money debts, reparation for insults to a flag, etc., by a national duel— involving a horrible massacre of thousands of men? The victor, acting as judge in his own cause, assesses the damages to his own profit. There need be no proportion between the injury done— if there be any injury— and the penalty exacted. The only limit to the ambition and vindictiveness of the stronger nation is the danger she may incur by exciting the jealousy of other neighbours, or of so permanently exasperating the vanquished as to create in them a dangerous spirit of revenge. The old answer, always a poor one, was that of Lord Bacon:—‘ Wars are no massacres, but the highest trial of right when States, acknowledging no superior on earth, put themselves upon the justice of God.’ So at one time were regarded trials by combat, trials by wager, and ordeals in litigation between private citizens. Nowadays the suggestion has an air of profanity. As a later philosopher admits:— ‘ Since every State has not the same amount of strength as of right, war may promote as often, if not oftener, the cause of injustice as the cause of justice.’ The clause ‘ if not oftener ’ is well put, for, obviously, the provocation to fight is more likely to come from the stronger party or the bully irrespective of his right. ‘ But,’ he continues, ‘ war is the only means to compel a State, and hence the problem must be to arrange matters so that the just cause should always be victorious.’ Unfortunately, however, Johann Gottlieb Fichte 2 B 386 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY quitted this world without having solved for us the problem or having ‘ arranged matters’ as he promised. But he has left on record a view of the morals of war which is as entertaining as some of the most brilliant efforts of Jesuit casuistry. ‘ The object of war/ he ex­ plains, ‘ is not to kill but to drive away and disarm the force which protects the country. In a hand-to-hand fight you kill another to escape being killed yourself, in right, therefore, of self-defence, and not in virtue of any right conferred by the State to kill the enemy, for no State has that right or can confer it. So,’ he continues, ‘ as to the modern manner of conducting warfare by cannons and guns * (firing at a distance) ‘ it is not the object to kill with the bullets, but merely to drive away the enemy from the place covered by the guns. If, nevertheless, the enemy remains, it is his own fault if the bullets hit him.’ That is, Bismarck and Von Moltke order five hundred thousand men to march on Paris, firing off guns all the time. And if a Frenchman puts his foolish head in the way and gets killed, the blame is entirely his own and not the Germans’. Did Mr. Gilbert ever hit upon, or Sir Arthur Sullivan ever set, an idea more deliciously topsy-turvy ? But to return to more serious matters than such German metaphysics:— In suggesting that existing inter­ national relations are fundamentally and essentially lawless, and therefore incompatible with the production of ordinary morals, I must not leave out of account what is called International Law, or the principles and rules which govern, or are supposed to govern, these relations. These rules, sometimes by flippant persons called the ‘ Rules of the Game,’ are educed from the customs and traditions recognised, or partially recognised, by certain powerful nations, and they have been elaborated and wrought into a system by jurists and philosophers, whose laudable object has been to mitigate the horrors of war, minimise their occasions, and generally to improve the manners and courtesies of nations in their intercourse with one another. But if the relations themselves are illicit, or ethically objectionable, you do not remove the radical defects by merely hiding their coarseness or pre- INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 387 venting some possible or accidental evil consequences. Sometimes, indeed, you may rather give vitality and fixity to the original fault by imparting to it an air of legality. This, it would appear from the confessions of the learned, has happened in the present case. First of all, let us not be deluded by high-sounding metaphor. (1) International law is not a code of international morality. It does not pretend to be. Its fundamental principle is distinctly non-moral. ‘ The doctrine of the absolute independence of separate States,’ writes Pro­ fessor Lorimer in his Institutes, ‘ amounts to a total repudiation of international responsibility. . . . The rela­ tion of citizen to citizen involves the duty of mutual protection. Is the recognised State entitled to claim from the community of States aid and protection if its continued existence as a State is in jeopardy ? ’ The answer is, No. (2) ‘ International law ’ is not law. It has no proper legislator or judiciary, and no sanction. (3) ‘ International law’ is not international; for (and this is its ugliest blot) it is confined to the so-called ‘ family of nations,’ the self-elected clique of powerful ones, who have mainly framed these rules for their own benefit. (Turkey, by the way, was admitted into this not altogether Happy Family so recently, I believe, as 1856.) International law does not deal even Lord Lytton’s ‘ kindly moderation ’ towards the stranger, the poor, or the cripple at the gate. A Glasgow professor of the science, in a recent lecture, thus illustrates this amiable principle:—‘ Unorganised bodies,’ or bodies without the family circle, ‘ are generally dealt with as objects of right, but not as possessors of legal rights themselves’ (very much, therefore, as slaves within a State). ‘ In a collision between a European State and an African tribe the European State is regarded as the sole good. War is an evil between European States, because they are both postulated as ends. In an African battle it is only the European loss of life that is counted.’ Again:—‘ The mistaken attempt to treat the native Indian States by the Law of Nations was atoned for in blood and gold’ ; and as to semi-barbarous China, re­ 388 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY member that ‘ the murder of an English missionary by a Chinese mob is an insult to Europe (“ Europe ” under­ lined), and is intended to be an insult.’ The inferences are obvious. (4) ‘ International law ’—which is not law, and not international—is, moreover, not an accepted code of ‘ honour among thieves,’ such as the rules which may prevail among banditti for the fair distribution of spoils, or as the would-be excellent regulations for the improve­ ment of the prize-ring made under the auspices of an eminent Scottish nobleman. For these are known, accepted, and fairly acted upon by the parties concerned. Whereas, says Professor Lorimer of the Law of Nations: —‘ There is not one of its doctrines with reference to which a scientific determination has been arrived at, or even a ripe public opinion has been formed.’ What, then, does it effect? Sir Henry Maine re­ plies:—It ‘ creates among nations a law-abiding senti­ ment’; that is, of course, not a sentiment in favour of the moral law, but a sentiment in favour of the rules of the aforesaid Law of Nations, which is no law. The consideration of International Law, however, leads us to the heart of the present discussion. Sir H. Maine, exemplifying the strong and wholesome restraint which this ‘ law-abiding sentiment ’ exerts upon nations when under temptation to fight, selects three rules laid down in the well-known work of Mr. W . E. Hall—rules which Maine pronounces to be ‘ good law ’ :— 1. ‘ The right of any State to organise itself in such manner as it may choose’ (i.e. adopt any sort of constitution, religious or civil despotism, domestic institutions, commercial codes, etc., except, of course, China, which is not in the Family). 2. ‘ The right to do within its own dominions what­ ever acts it may think calculated to render it strong or prosperous’ (i.e. mass troops on the frontier, erect fortresses or sail ironclads under its ^ neighbour’s nose). 3. ‘ Unlimited right to occupy unappropriated terri­ tory, or to incorporate new provinces with the INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 389

free consent (1) of their inhabitants’ (i.e., as it is sometimes worded, the right of ‘ cosmopolitan expansion’— a beautifully comprehensive phrase!).

Now, Maine points out how, over and over again, within this century respect for these rules has preserved contentious nations from coming to blows. But is it not clear that these rules contain precisely those non-ethical elements against which the individual conscience or the religious conscience is more and more rising in revolt? The first two mean Non-Intervention writ large as far as the Family of Nations is concerned, and the third means Intervention, wherever and whenever prudent, in the case of weaker nations or peoples with coloured skins. It is just these principles which tend to throw the rules of International Law into the sharpest conflict with the axioms of private morality. Even in democratic Britain the people are practically (sometimes fortunately) kept outside the inner circle of the foreign political machinery, upon which they can only exercise an indirect influence. But this influence is bound to increase, and its tendency will be to break down the bulwarks, weak as they are, which safeguard peace and liberty, and to precipitate infinite mischief. For if, on grounds of altruistic virtue or in view of abstract justice, we disregard our national interests, we do so to the peril of the Empire. If, on the other hand, by indiscriminate knight-errantry we set forth to redress the wrongs of other nations and provoke them to retaliate by correcting us, we inevitably bring about a pandemonium. In answer to such pleas as this we often hear excel­ lent persons, in and out of the pulpit, exclaim:— ‘ Nations must do right whatever comes of it. Fiat justitia, mat ccelum ! ’ It has always seemed to me that this rhetorical phrase expresses the extremity of wickedness. If heaven is to fall— if that means anything— hell must take its place. It at least supposes the utter ruin of mankind, ' and that would be Summa Injuria. Morality was made for man— not man for morality. What petty immorality or sectarian act of injustice in any corner of the earth can be set against a supreme injustice to the whole of 390 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY humanity? ‘ Perish India I’ is a kindred cry only one degree less wicked; for ‘ Perish India ’ means desolation, massacre, cruelty, the oppression of millions, and the downfall of the Empire, which at least, as things stand, is the main stronghold on earth of liberty and the best security for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. All ordinary laws of morality, then, must give way before the higher law, Salus reipublicae, or the highest law of all, Salus mundi, suprema lex. Anyhow, we must make the best of circumstances that we cannot now alter, and of two evils choose the least. Is it, after all, wrong for a nation— as we are generally agreed it would be for an individual—to do a little evil that a great good may come ? I ask. I do not know. Sir James Stephen said he didn’t know. Lord Wolseley apparently thinks not— not even for an individual when acting on behalf of the nation— for in his Soldiers Pocket- Book, instructing spies how to lie with audacity and suc­ cess, he remarks that some people ‘ keep hammering away that honesty is the best policy and that truth always wins in the long run,’ but ‘ these pretty little sentences do well for a copy-book, but a man who acts upon them had better sheath his sword for ever.’ Again, it has been asked—and, as we know, the question is variously answered— if ‘ a life spent in the discharge of Christian duties is the highest form of life.’ ‘ Is there, after all, not something more valuable than blamelessness and something higher than innocence in a nation ? ’ Or should we be ‘ prepared to sacrifice the history of this country for a history of unbroken inoffen- siveness—relieved by no heroism, exalted by no greatness — as, say, that of the Esquimaux ? ’ But it is not my object to attempt a reconciliation of the two moral standards, or to justify international usages by any other plea than that of dire necessity. That object is rather— while admitting the ideal der sirability of nations acting according to our private notions of morality— to insist that they have never done so, and can never do so, as long as they remain in their aboriginal condition, voluntarily subject, as it were, to the primitive law of nature and the animal struggle for exist­ INTERNATIONAL MORALITY 391

ence. Can the ideally desirable end of universal peace be ever attained, even under altered circumstances ? Some writers, as David Strauss in The Old Faith and the New, ridicule this aspiration and say, ‘ You may as well try to abolish thunderstorms/ But to this we must reply— free will and moral causes do not work on the same lines as electricity. History has had, as yet, no experience of that event, that crisis in mundane affairs, which must come some day, perhaps within two or three centuries, viz. the complete peopling of the whole habit­ able globe. The effect of this upon morals, private and national, must be immense. Once Great Britain, for instance, has satisfied her prodigious appetite for annexa­ tion, has quite digested her last African meal and hoisted the Union Jack upon the North Pole; when savage or inferior races are wiped out, or are elevated to an equal level of civilisation over the whole earth, so that the Family of Nations should embrace every State in them, at least one great provocation to war will be removed. Possibly nations may then confederate into a universal commonwealth, with a central judiciary and executive, forming a vast United States of Humanity, such as the excellent Fichte and Professor Harris have dreamt of. When the brotherhood of mankind is something more than an expression, War may become a thing of the past, and the human conscience triumph for a time over Nature’s great law of battle. And what then ? Nature will not, I think, have to wait long for her revenge. If the beasts of the forest were to meet in council, and if, on the motion of the tiger, the carnivora were to agree to become vegetarians, the elephant would applaud their abandonment of a dis­ gusting habit, but the sagacious creature would foretell with certainty the speedy extinction of the species. With the cessation of war— ‘ beastly war,’ if you will-— .comes the cessation of the most powerful stimulus to heroism, mighty deeds, and glory. Decay must gradually set in upon the whole social frame. The epic vanishes from poetry, art becomes insipid, even our games and diversions lose their flavour. ‘ Waterloo,’ said the old Duke, ‘ was won in the playing fields of Eton.’ Field 392 INTERNATIONAL MORALITY sports, cricket, and football will cease to have an object or an interest. Chess, draughts, even the milder joys of our children’s Beggar-my-neighbour, will be discarded as painful reminiscences of the obsolete Law of Nations. The world will be drawing to its end— the nations must die, and why not? It would not at least be by any violence or cruelty, but it would be a natural death, pious and meritorious, a requiescens in pace, from the suppres­ sion of ambition and the extinction of desire. With the end of Desire, says the Oriental sage, comes the end of life; and so the end of humanity, the National Euthanasia— Nirvana. APPENDIX

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PRINCIPAL WRITINGS AND EDITIONS OF THOMAS GRAVES LAW

1. An Index to the Harmonies of the Four Gospels (London, Burns and Oates) ...... I8 6 0 2. Review of Dr. Smith on the Pentateuch (Dublin Review) 1866 3. Calendar of English Martyrs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (London, Burns and Oates) .... 1876 4. Introductory Dissertation on the Latin Vulgate (London, privately p r i n t e d ) ...... 1877 5. Douay Diaries, with Introduction by Rev. Fr. Knox (London, D. N u tt )...... 1877 6. Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests (Edinburgh, T. C. J a c k ) ...... 1878 7. Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen (Edinburgh Review) . 1878 8. Craig’s Catechism (Edinburgh, David Douglas) 1883 9. Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism, with a Preface by Mr. Gladstone (Oxford, Clarendon Press) .... 1884 10. Vaux’s Catechism (Chetham Society) ..... 1885 11. Cuthbert Mayne and the Bull of Pius v. (English Historical Review) ...... 18 86 12. Review of Forbes-Leith’s Narratives of Scottish Catholics (English Historical Review) ...... 1886 13. The Miraculous Cross of St. Donats (English Historical Review) 1886 14. The Jesuits and Benedictines in England (English Historical Review) ...... 1889 15. The Conflicts of Jesuits and Seculars in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, David Nutt) ..... 1889 16. The Library History of Edinburgh (Scotsman, December 11). 1889 17. The Signet Library (chap. iv. of the History of the Society of Writers to H.M. Signet. Edinburgh, printed for the S o c ie ty )...... 1890 18. The Legend of Archangel Leslie (Scottish Review) . 1891 19- Bibliography of the Lives of two Scots Capuchins (Edinburgh Bibliographical S o c ie ty )...... 1891 20. John Major, Scottish Scholastic (Scottish Review) . 1892 894 APPENDIX

21. Review of Fr. Pollen's 1 Acts of English Martyrs’ (English Historical Review) ...... 1892 22. Bibliography of John Major and his Disciples (Scottish History Society, vol. x. A p p e n d i x ) ...... 1892 23. Catholic Policy in the reign of James vi. (Scottish History Society, vol. xv.) . . . . . 1893 24. Biblical Studies in the Middle Ages (Scottish Review) 1893 25. Father William Crichton, S.J. (English Historical Review) 1893 26. Father Archangel of Scotland (Nineteenth Century) 1893 27. Devil Hunting in Elizabethan England (Nineteenth Century) . 189^ 28. The Spanish Blanks and Catholic Earls (Scottish Review) 1894 29- Materials for the History of the Scots Brigade (Scotsman, May 3 1 ) ...... 1894 30. Some Curious Translations of Mediaeval Latin (Scotsman3 July 2 8 ) ...... 1895 31. The Archpriest Controversy, vol. i. (Camden Society) . 1896 32. Review of Gillow’s ‘ History of English Catholics/ vol. iv. (English Historical Review)...... 1896 33. Colonel William Sempill (Scotsman, Aug. 10) 1896 34. International Morality (New Review) ..... 1897 35. The Gunpowder Plot ( English Historical Review) . 1897 36. Notes on some Writings attributed to Father James Tyrie, S.J. (Edinburgh Bibliographical Society) .... 1897 37. The Archpriest Controversy, vol. ii. (Camden Society) . 1898 38. Review of Camm’s Benedictine Martyrs (English Historical Review) ...... 1898 39. English Jesuits and Scottish Intrigues (Edinburgh Review) 1898 40. Catholic Tractates of the Seventeenth Century (Scottish Text Society) ...... 1900 41. The New Testament in Scots, vol. i. (Scottish Text Society). 1901 42. The New Testament in Scots, vol. ii. (Scottish Text Society) 1903 43. Lislebourg and Petit Leith (Scottish Historical Review) . 1903 44. Mary Stewart (for the Cambridge Modem History) . 1904

Articles contributed to Chambers’s Encyclopaedia

45. Aquinas, St. Thomas ...... 1887 46. A r c h p r ie s t ...... 1887 47. Altar ...... 1887 48. A lle g i a n c e ...... 1887 49. Campion, Edmund ...... 1888 50. Canonisation ...... 1888 51. Celibacy ...... 1889 52. Douay ...... 1889 53. Garnet, Thomas ...... 1890 APPENDIX 395

54. Gunpowder P l o t ...... 1890 55. Library ...... 1890 56. Mary i., Queen o f E n g l a n d ...... 1891 57. N eri, St. P h i l i p ...... 1891 58. Oratory ...... 1891 59. Parsons, Robert, S. J...... 1891 60. Pole, R e g i n a l d ...... 1891 61. Scotland (section on the Roman Catholic Church only) . 1892 62. Trent, Council of ...... 1892 63. Vulgate ...... 1892 64. V o w ...... 1892

Contributions to the Dictionary o f National Biography

65. Hamilton, John, Archbishop of St. Andrews (1511? - 1571) . 1890 66. Laing, David ( 1793- 1878) ...... 1892 67. Law, Edmund, Bishop of Carlisle ( 1703- 1787) . . . 1892 68. Mush, John (1552- 1617) ...... 1894 69. Ogilvy, John, S.J. (1580?-1615) ...... 1895 70. Parsons, Robert, S.J. ( 1546- 1610) ...... 1895 71. Sanders, Nicholas (1530 ?- 1581) ...... 1897 72. Sempill, William ( 1546- 1633) ...... 1897 73. Stewart, Sir William (d. 1603) ...... 1898 74. Tyrie, James, S.J. ( 1543- 1597) ...... 1899 75. Tyrrell, Anthony ( 1552- 1610) ...... 1899 76. Vaux, Lawrence ( 1519- 1585) ...... 1899 77. Winter, Thomas ( 1572- 1606) ...... 1900 78. Wright, John (1568 ?- 1605) ...... 1900

Contributions to the Supplement

79- Bruce, Robert (d. 1602) ...... 1901 80. Cecil, alias Snowden, John ( 1558- 1626) . . . . 1901

INDEX

A Discoverieofthe Unnatural and Traitorous j connection with the Spanish Blanks, 257, Conspiracie of the Scottish Papists against I 258, 261, 310; excommunicated by the God His K irk (1593), 257. I Synod of Fife, in company with Errol and A Lapide, Biblical commentator, 49, 50. } Huntly, 273 ; conditional pardon under A Short Note of the Standing Condition of the Act of Abolition, 274, 317 ; his insur­ Affairs in England, ascribed to Cardinal rection with Errol and Huntly, 275 ; flight Allen (1569), 185. to Caithness, 275. Abbeyville, Gueroul of, 15. Anselm, Dean of Laon, author of the Inter- Abelard, 28, 120. linearis, 29. Abercromby, Father Robert, his connection Aquaviva, Parsons’ general, 221, 225. with the Spanish Blanks, £55, 259, 260, Aquila, his translation of the Bible from 264. Hebrew into Greek, 59, 88. Abolition, Act of, 274, 317. Aquinas, St. Thomas, 28, 3 1; on the doc­ Acosta, Joseph, 49. trine of the allegorical treatment of the Adamson, Angus, his translation of the Bible, 25; Commentary on St. Paul Chartulary of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, quoted, 36; his attitude towards the 101-2. ‘ manifold literal sense,’ 48 ; his influence Admonition to the Nobility and People of on the study of theology, 115; his theo­ England and Ireland, by the Cardinal of logical views, 116; the ‘Thomists,’ 115-17. England, 210. Argyll, Earl of, defeated at Glenlivet, 275. Agazzari, Father, letter to Parsons on Allen, Armada, the Spanish, sets out, 208; failure 211. of, 315* Albertus Magnus, scholastic exposition of Arran, Earl of, rises to power (1582), 329 ; Scripture, 26, 31, 37. censures John Craig, 298; his death, 298. Alcuin, 33 ; revises the Vulgate, 90. Auriol, Peter, theologian, 119. Allen, William, Cardinal of England, 287 ; his family and education, 176; founds B a c o n , F r a n c is , on War, 385. Douay College, 91 ; its object, 215; 011 ----- Roger, on the Vulgate, 65 n. an English Catholic version of the Bible, Ballard, exorcist, 156, 173. 92 n .; assists in the translation of the Balmerino, Lord. See Elphinstone. Vulgate, 93; his complicity in Roman Bancroft, Bishop of London, charged with Catholic intrigues of 1579-80, 190, 194; encouraging Roman Catholics, 154. pushes forward Jesuit mission to England, Barrault, Pere Frangois, his Histoire Mer- 190, 241 ; his Apology fo r the Seminaries, veilleuse et tres veritable, 333, 349, 370. 193, 212; leads Jesuit intrigues of 1582, Bartill Bailzie, alias of Robert Bruce, q.v. 241; intrigues in Scotland in 1583, 196-7; Basle, council of, n o , 130. his Sincere and Modest Defence, 150, 204, Beatitudes, the, their order in St. Jerome’s 213; appointed Bishop of Durham, 203; edition of the Vulgate, 84. advises direct attack on England, 204, Bedell, Robert, of Denham, 167. 248; his letter in defence of Sir William Bentley, Richard, on the revision of the Stanley, 213; advice to Philip 11. on his Latin Vulgate, 70 n. ; proposes new claims to the English throne, 207 ; ap­ critical edition of the Greek Testament, pointed Cardinal of England, 208; pre­ 76. sides over commission for examining the Beza’s Greek Testament, 75. Vulgate, 72; difference with the Jesuits, Bible, the, recent attacks on Catholic posi­ 2 11; died at Rome (1594), 211. tion, 51 ; Luther’s discovery of, at Erfurt, Angus, William Douglas, Earl of, takes lead 15 ; cost of, at Paris in the fourteenth of Papal party in Scotland (1592), 253 ; century, 16; copies of, in the Sorbonne, arrested in Edinburgh, 254; put to trial, 16-18 ; Chaldee versions, 53, 55. 256; escapes from the Castle, 257 ; his ----- in the Middle Ages, study of it 398 INDEX

neglected, 20-22; neglect of, censured by Bright, John, 381. Maldonatus, 2 1 ; causes of decadence Brinkley, Stephen, sets up a secret printing- of learning, 23 ; its position in the press for Parsons, 146, 149. early Middle Ages, 23-4; allegorical Bristow, Dr. Richard, assists Dr. Gregory * * interpretation of the Bible, 25, 31; Martin in his translation of the Vulgate, 93. fresh impulse given to study in thir­ Brognolo, Father, his Manuale Exorcist- teenth century in France, 28 ; revised text arum, 173. ; of Stephen Harding, 33 ; Correctoria and Bruce, Robert, informer and spy, 250, 314, Glossaries, 33, 34, 90; Commentaries, 3 *9 > 33° i employed by Scottish Catholic 35 5 Questions, 35, 39,40; new direction to nobles on a mission to Philip 11., 315; ! study given by De Lyra, 43 ; influence of returns to Scotland and intrigues for the study of Hebrew, 45 ; Tostatus’ Com­ Roman Catholics, 316; turns informer, '$ mentaries, 46; influence of the Classical 253> 3r7 » granted remission for treason i{. Revival, 46 ; Luther attacks the Catholic by James v i., 253, 317 ; pardoned condi- ^ position, 47 ; the Tridentine period, 47 ; tionally under the Act of Abolition, 317 ; advanced study of the Bible by Catholics, his death, 318. 47, 48; the retrograde doctrine of the Bullock, Peter, bookbinder, 152. t ‘ manifold literal sense,’ 48; Hebrew Burgos, Paul of (Solomon Levita), refutes ^ version of the Bible, 54; differs from the De Lyra, 44. 1 Greek versions, 56, 58-9; divergences in Burleigh, Cecil, Lord, 156, 242, 253. ancient versions of the Bible, 57-60; in Greek m ss., 57, 78, 80; editions of the C a j e t a n , T h o m a s d e V i o , Cardinal, ! Greek Testament, 74-77; old Latin commentator, 47, 132. I version of (called the Itala), 79, 80; Calvin’s Catechism, 303. I Jerome’s translation from Hebrew, 87; Campion, lands in England at head of a ! Tyndale’s translation of the Bible, 91 ; Jesuit mission in 1580, 142, 190; his Douay version of the Bible, 91 ; the manifesto to the Lords in Council, nick­ Geneva Bible, 92. See also Vulgate, named the Brag and Challenge, secretly Septuagint, St. Jerome. published, 144-5 ; his Ten Reasons, 148 ; Biblici, 35. caught and executed, 148, 191, 224; Bibliotheca, meaning of, in Mediaeval Latin, nature of his mission, 217. .99- Capelle, Louis, author of Critica Sacra, Biel, Gabriel, scholastic, 121, 123. 48, 73* Bigamia, meaning of, in Mediaeval Latin, 99. Carafa, Cardinal, 71, 72. Blois, Peter of, Archbishop of Bath, 5, 6. Carter, William, secret printer, 146, 149, Boece’s Vita Episcoporum Aberdonensium, 151 ; prints the Innocency of the Scottish 101. Queen, 146. Boissonet, Laurence, possessed of a devil, Carvajal, Louis de, 134-5; censures scholastic 162. theologians, 135. Bologna, 8. Castelli, Papal nuncio, 195; his letter of Bonaventure, Biblical commentator, 26, 28, 1583 to the Cardinal of Como on the 116; allegorical treatment of Scripture, plans of the ‘ Holy W ar,’ 198. 32. . Cecil, Dr. John, English secular priest, Bononia, Bernardus de, his life of Arch­ 258, 319- angel Leslie, 374. Cervisia, its meaning in Mediaeval Latin, Book-trade in Scotland in Middle Ages, 19. 100. ----- contraband, in Elizabeth’s reign, 149. Chaldee versions of the Bible, 53, 55. ----- in fourteenth century, see Paris. Challoner, Bishop, revises the Douay Bible, Bothwell, Earl of, 256, 301 ; promises to 93 ; quoted on the devil-hunting in Eliza­ help Spain against England, 250, 315; beth’s reign, 157, 158, 170. joins Huntly, Errol, and Crawford in Charlemagne’s care for the Bible, 90. insurrection (1589), 251 ; committed to Charles 1. of England, 352, 353, 358. ward in Tantallon Castle, 252; insubor­ Chisholm, Sir James, his connection with dination and intrigues of, in 1593-4, the Spanish Blanks, 260. 273-4; the ‘ Raid of Leith,’ 274. Christeson, J., alias of Father Gordon, 258, Bowes, Robert, Elizabeth’s agent in Scot­ 259- land, 245, 253, 264, 317 ; writes to Lord Christie, Father William, Jesuit, on Arch­ Burghley on Robert Bruce, 316. angel Leslie, 362; on proposed additions Boyd, Colonel, betrays Bruges, 326. to II Cappuccino Scozzese, 371. Brag and Challenge, the, nickname given to Clement v ., 45, 60. Campion’s manifesto, 145. ----- v iii., 72. Brewerton (or Brereton), alias of Watts, 240. Clifton, Francis, on Archangel Leslie, 332. Briant, Alexander, Parsons’ friend, caught Colonna, Cardinal, revises Vulgate with and tortured, 147. Cardinal Allen, 72. INDEX 399

Colville, John, 328. D ’Ossat, Cardinal, French ambassador, on Comestor, Peter, 40; his Historia Scholas­ the English Seminaries, 215. tica, 41, 42. Dacre, Lord, 196. Commentaries—of John Major, 35; of ‘ Daltay (or Dalgaty), baron,’ 353, 354, 374. Tostatus, 36; of St. Thomas, 36; of De Gamaches, Father Ciprien, on Archangel Scotus, 37. Leslie, 361-2. Como, Cardinal of, papal Secretary of State, De Joyeuse, Father Ange, 338-9. 194. 195, 199- De la Marche, James, 118. Cornelius, John, exorcist, 156, 158, 163. De Lyra, Nicolas, 43-45 ; his Postillce, 43 ; Correctoria, revisions of the text of the its reception, 44, 45. Vulgate, 33, 90. De Nivella, Bernier, 12. Coupon, Robert of, 112. De Roucy, Charles, Bishop of Soissons, 160. Craig, John, 279; his Confession o f Faith (or De Thou, on the Jesuit mission to England National Covenant), 277, 296, 304; his of 1580 ; and on the seminaries, 215. Shorte Summe of the Whole Catechisme, ‘ De Torrey, Baron,’ name given by Bar­ 277, 295, 303 ; his AneForm of Examina­ rault and Pere Richard to the elder brother tion before the Communion, 278, 301, 303; of Archangel Leslie, 350, 354, 367, 376; other works of, 278 ; his early career, 280; the barony of Torrey, 350. converted to Protestantism, 281 ; his im­ Deipara, meaning of, in Mediaeval Latin, 99. prisonment at Rome, and release, 281 ; Della Rovere, Francesco Maria, Duke of the incident of the black dog, 283-4 ; joins Urbino, 340. the Reformed Church in Scotland, 286; Del Nero, Bernardo, on the virtue of govern­ becomes Knox’s assistant, 286; speaks in ments, 380. the debate with Maitland in 1564 on Dempster on Archangel Leslie, 357. passive obedience, 288; his connection Denham House, scene of devil-hunting, 162, with Riccio’s murder, 290; refuses to 163, 173* sanction Mary’s marriage to Bothwell, Deutz, Rupert of, 28. 291-2; debates at the ‘ Convention of the Devil-hunting in England, 155-7; at Laon K ir k ’ in 1571 on passive obedience, 293; and Soissons, 160-2. goes to Aberdeen (1574), 294; appointed Devils, names of, 167. Royal Chaplain to James vi. (1579), 295 ; Dibdale, Robert, exorcist, 156, 158, 166, elected moderator of the General Assembly, 167, 170, 173- 297; reproves James and applauds the Dominicans, the, dispute with the Francis­ Gowrie Conspiracy, 297; denounces the cans, 117, 118. * Black Acts,’ 297; effects compromise with Dominion, its illegality, 384. James v i., 297 ; interview with Arran, Doringk (or Thoring), Matthias, defends De 298; change in his political views, 300; Lyra, 45. his Testament, 302. Douay, college at, founded in 1568, 91, 93, ----- William, son of John Craig, 302. 142, 187, 215. Cranmer’s Bible, 92. ----- version of the Bible, 94. Crannach, John, Bishop of Brechin, 2. Douglas, rector of St. Andrews University, Crawford, Earl of, converted to Roman 287. Catholicism, 250; rises against James vi. Drury, Robert, 179 n. with Errol and Huntly, 251; committed Ducket, James, secret printer and publisher, to ward in St. Andrews Castle, 252. I52-3- Crichton (or Creighton), Father William, Duncanson, John, minister of James v i.’s 234-5, 249, 256, 318; sent to Scotland household, 295, 299, 300 n, 301. with Edmund Hay in 1582, 195, 231, 234, Durandus a S. Portiano, theologian, 119. 263 ; leaves for the Continent (1582), 238 ; returns to Scotland and is captured and E l i z a b e t h , 140, 316, 317, 318; her religious placed in the Tower (1584), 263, 305 ; his views, 141 ; danger from Jesuit intrigues, Reasons to show the Easiness o f the 142, 186, 220; her conduct to Roman Enterprise, 307 ; released from the Tower Catholics, 178-9,181-2; excommunication, (1586), 263, 307; in Scotland again February 1570, 142, 186; the designs of (1588-9), 263; his connection with the Gregory x iii. against, 189; her assassina­ Spanish Blanks, 258, 259, 260, 263; his tion contemplated, 198-9, 263; attempts supposed embassy to Rome in 1593, against her life, 201; repression of Jesuits 307-10; blames Parsons’ policy, 311. (1585), 241; urges James vi. to punish Cursores, 35. Scottish Catholic earls, 251, 256; nature and effects of her policy, 381. D. O. M ., mistranslation of the letters, 102. Ellenborough, Edward, Baron, Lord Chief D ’Alatri, Eleuterio, author of a drama on Justice, vii. Archangel Leslie, 334, 353, 373. Elphinstone, Sir James, James vi. ’s secretary, D ’Aubigny, 220, 225, 227-8. 310, 312. 400 INDEX

Emerson, Ralph, works contraband book- 317; arrives at Aberdeen and is seized, trade, 149, sqq. 275. 318- Epiphanes, Roger Lindsay, Father, 354, Gordon, Sir Patrick, of Auchindoun, 256, 361, 362; accompanies Archangel Leslie 258, 274. on his second mission to Scotland, 350, Governments, 380-1; their evolution, 382. 357. Gowrie, Earl of, 331. Erasmus and the Mammotrectus, 22; his Graham, David, of Fintry, rises against Greek Testament, 74, 76. James vi. in 1589, 252; tried as a rebel Errol, Francis Hay,Earl of, 318; converted to in 1594, 256 ; confesses about the Spanish Roman Catholicism, 250; conspires against Blanks, 257, 261; executed, 257. James and rises with Huntly and Crawford, Gregory the Great, 90. 251 ; summoned to appear before James Greek Testament differs from Hebrew, 56, at St. Andrews, 256 ; his connection with 58-59. the Spanish Blanks, 257, 260, 261, 310 ; ------editions of, 74-77 ; codices of, 78. excommunicated by the Synod of Fife, See also Bible and Septuagint. 273 ; conditional pardon under the Act of Green, J. R., on persecution of Roman Abolition, 274, 317 ; rises with Angus and Catholics in Elizabeth’s reign, 180. Huntly (1594), 275; flies to Caithness, ------on Elizabeth, 381. 275 ; exile and return of, 276. Gregory x m ., designs against Elizabeth, Estius, 47; opposes the ‘ literal sense ’ in 189, 194, 195, 203; the ‘ Holy W ar,’ sixteenth century, 50. 190 ; grants the ‘ Faculties’ (1580), 191. Ethics, study of, in Middle Ages, 35. ----- x v., 341. Eusebius, 84. Greenlaw, Gilbert, Bishop of Aberdeen, 2. Excommunication, mediaeval theologians on, ----- William, 2, 3. i i i , 112. Griesbach’s Greek Testament, 77. ----- of Elizabeth, 142, 186-7. Guise, Duke of, his intrigues in 1580, 194, Exorcisms, manner of conducting, 164-5, 195 ; plans the murder of Elizabeth, 198- 169, 173. 200; his connection with the intended Exorcists, charges of immorality and cruelty invasion of England in 1584, 203. against, 174. H a l e s , A l e x a n d e r , 28, 48. Hall, W. E ., his three principles of inter­ ‘ F a c u l t i e s , ’ the, granted by Gregory xm . national law, 388. (1580), 191-2. Hamilton’s, Archbishop, Catechism, 303. Farnese, Cardinal, 67. Hamilton, Dr. John, on John Craig, 284. Ferretti, Girolamo da Castel, 339. Hampden of Hampden, on the devil-hunting Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, on the object of at Denham, 172. war, 386. Harding, Stephen, revises the text of the Filhol, Antony, Archbishop of Aix, draws Vulgate, 33. up a report for the Council of Trent on Harsnet, Dr. Samuel, his Declaration oj the ‘ abuses of Scripture,’ 63. Egregious Popish Impostures, etc., 159; Fintry. See Graham of Fintry. his charges against the exorcists, 173. Forbeses, the, of Monymusk, 349. Haureau, M., on Duns Scotus, 120. Forester, Walter, Bishop of Brechin, 2. Hay, Edmund, 231, 250, 252, 256; sent to Foster, Edward, alias of Robert Bruce, q.v. Scotland with Crichton in 1582, 231, 234. Franciscans, the, 108, 110 ; dispute with the Haydock, Rev. George, his annotated edition Dominicans, 118. of the Bible, 94, 95. Froude, on the Jesuits in Scotland, 220, Hebrew versions of Bible differ from Greek, 239- 56, 58, 59. See also Bible. Heidelberg (or Palatine) Catechism, the, G e n e v a version of the Bible, 92. 303- Ghent, Henry of, Dominican, 48, 118, 122. Henry v i i i ., press censorship in the reign Glendonwyn, Matthew, Bishop of Glasgow, of, 139. 2. Herle, William, on Sempill’s betrayal of Glenlivet, battle of, 275. Lierre, 323. Glossa Ordinaria, of Strabo, 28-9. Hesychius, his recension of the Bible, 82 ------Explanation of Genesis i. quoted, and note. 29, 30- Hey wood, Jasper, S.J., 221, 230, 231, 232. ------used by Aquinas, 31. Holt, Father William, 195 ; sent to England Gordon, Father James, 264, 305 ; his con­ with Heywood (1581), 221 ; ordered into nection with the Spanish Blanks, 255, Scotland, 226, 230; interview with Men­ 258, 259, 260; his mission to the pope, doza, 232-3. and return to Scotland (1594), 310; his ‘ Holy War, The,’ igo, 198. See also Roman movements in 1594 informed on by Bruce, Catholics and Philip II. of Spain. INDEX 401

‘ Howlet, John,’ author of Reasons why secret intrigues with Rome, 267, 309, 311- Catholics refuse to go to Churchy alias of 12; his connection with Crichton’s sup­ Parsons, 147. posed embassy to the pope in 1593, 307- Hug, Dr. J. L., 51, 82. 10; his Certain Reasons, etc., 268-71. Huntly, George Gordon, Earl of, 225, 318 ; Jeremias in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, helps Sempill, 325; conspires against 59- James (1589), 249, 251; open insurrec­ Jerome. See St. Jerome. tion in the north with Errol and Crawford Jesuit mission to England of 1580, 190, 192, dispersed at Brig of Dee, 251, 316; com­ 240. mitted to ward in Borthwick Castle, 252; Jesuits expelled from Scotland by Act of murder of Earl of Moray, 253; James Council (1589), 252; the nature of their refuses to punish him, 253, 256; sum­ missions to England, 242-3; nature of moned to St. Andrews, 256; his con­ their intrigues, 262. See also Roman nection with the Spanish Blanks, 257, Catholics. 260, 261, 310; excommunicated by the John, Master, librarian of the Sorbonne, 3, Synod of Fife, 273; conditional pardon 12, 13 ; his catalogues, 13, 14. under the Act of Abolition, 274, 317; Josephus, 55. rises with Errol and Angus in 1594, 275 ; Jurisprudence, study of, at Paris in the four­ flight to Caithness, 275 ; exile and return teenth century, 6. of, 276. Justice in public morals, 379. Husenbeth, Dr., his abridged edition of Haydock, 95. K e r r , G e o r g e , 244, 318; his mission to Spain discovered, 253; caught and ex­ I. H. S., meaning of the letters, 102. amined, 254; letters and Spanish Blanks II Cappuccino Scozzese, by Rinuccini, 333, discovered, 254, 257; confesses about the 370; editions of, 334, 365, 368; its Spanish Blanks under torture, 256, 260-1 ; reception, 335-6; criticised by Father escapes from Edinburgh, 272. Christie, 362; dispute as to its author­ Kirkaldy of Grange, 292, 293. ship, 363; translated by Barrault, 333, Knox, John, 138, 278, 286, 293 ; debate with 349> 37° J other translations, 371. Maitland in 1564 on passive obedience, Inojosa, Marquis, 357. 287 ; his connection with Riccio’s murder, ' Interlinearis,1 Glossa, 29, 31 ; on Genesis 290. i., 30. International Law, 386 sqq. ; not a law and L a c h m a n n ’s edition of the Bible, 76, 77. not international, 387; its effect, 388-9; Lanfranc, 28, 33 ; revises the Vulgate, 90. Mr. W . E. Hall’s three rules, 388. Langton, Stephen, compiler of Paris Cor------Morality, definition and scope, 377, rectorium, 33. 379; Is it attainable?, 377, 380, 390. Lateran Council, 208 and n. Isaias the prophet, omitted from copies of Latin Bible, the. See Bible, Vulgate, Itala. the Septuagint, 58. Law, Edmund, Bishop of Carlisle, vii. Italay the, name given by St. Augustine to ----- Thomas Graves— his descent, v ii; his a recension of the old Latin Bible, and used boyhood, v iii; enters Stonyhurst College, generally of the old Latin version, 79, 80, ix ; enters Brompton Oratory, ix ; his 81. studies there, i x ; leaves the Church of Rome (1878), x ; appointed librarian of the J a h n , J o h n , Biblical critic, 51. Signet Library, x i ; becomes Hon. Sec. James vi. of Scotland, 206, 247, 248, 310, of the Scottish History Society (1886), 3 I9 > 329, 330; described by MacQuirrie, x ii; receives testimonial from it (1903)1 266; falls under the influence of Lennox, x iii; receives degree of L L .D . from Edin­ 194, 263, 295; signs the ‘ King’s Con­ burgh University (1898), x iii; edits Craigs fession’ (1581), 296 ; the Raid of Ruthven, Catechism (1883), x iv ; edits Hamilton's 197, 297; passes the ‘ Black Acts * in Catechism (1884), xiv; his historical studies, 1584, 297 ; effects a compromise with xiv ; Jesuits and Seculars published (1889), Craig, 299 ; urged to take measures xv ; contributes a chapter on Mary Stuart against Papists, 251, 253, 255, 256, 316 ; to Cambridge Modern History, xv, x v i; crushes the earls’ insurrection at the Brig contributions to societies, x vii; marriage, of Dee (1589), 251-2, 316; grants re­ xviii; illness and death, xviii; paper on mission to Robert Bruce (1592), 253, International Morality, xix. 317; pardons Bruce in 1593 under the ----- Hon. W. Towry, viii. Act of Abolition, 317 ; pardons the Le Capucin Escossois, 371-3 5 its authorship, Catholic earls by the Act of Abolition, 372* 274> 317 i crushes the earls’ rebellion in Le Famer, Robert, II. 1594, 275; his religious position at the Le Sevre, Jehan, 11. . time of the Spanish Blanks, 265; his Lennox, Esm6 Stuart, Duke of— intrigues C 402 INDEX

in 1581, 194, 229, 263, 295; signs the Luther’s discovery of the Bible at Erfurt, 15; ‘ King’s Confession,’ 296; holds com­ his attitude to the doctrine of the ‘ literal munication with Father Holt in 1582, sense,’ 44, 49; attacks Catholicism, 46-7 ; 233» 235 J and with Father Crichton, 195, his German Bible, 6 1; on divergences in 235i 263; intrigues with Spain, 195, the Scriptures, 62. 236-7; flight after the Raid of Ruthven, Lytton, Lord, on public morals, 379. 197 ; his death in 1583, 198. Leonard, Father, of Paris, secures Archangel Mac h ia v e ll i on ideal governments, 381. Leslie’s acquittal of the charges of Pro­ Macpherson, Abbe, on the authorship of paganda, 361. II Cappuccino Scozzese, 337, 363. Leslie, Andrew, 337, 354, 363* MacQuirrie, 264, 266. ----- Archangel George, 332, 366, 367, 371 ; Maine, Sir Henry, on International Law, his birth and descent, 338, 356, 366; goes 388. to Rome, and is converted, 338, 356 ; joins Mainy, Richard* possessed of a devil, 159, the order of the Capuchins, 339, 356 n. ; 164, 167, 168, 174; pretends to fall into visits Paul V ., 339; goes to Paris, 341 ; a trance, 169. first mission to Scotland, 341, 357 ; his Maitland, debate with Knox on passive supposed stay in London, 342, 357 ; obedience (1564), 287; debates at the arrives at Monymusk, 342 sqq. ; his work * Convocation of the Kirk * on passive in Scotland, 344, 357-8; summoned to obedience (1571), 293. Rome in 1630 by Propaganda, 345, 367 ; Major, John, his Commentary on Matthew* the meeting with Rinuccini, 345-6, 368-9 ; 35, 126 ; his History o f Greater Britain, returns to Scotland, 347, 350, 352; the 105; his religious position, 107, 108, n o Isle of Wight episode, 351 ; his death, sqq. ; his ‘ political liberalism,’ 109; his 352, 353* 367. attitude to the Franciscans, 108, n o - n j ------Legend, the, 334, 336, 337; on excommunication, i n ; on miracles, Rinuccini’s story, 333-4, 338-48, 368; its i n ; publications of, 113; his Commentary popularity, 335-6; Barrault’s translation, on the Sentences, 113, 122-4; independent 333, 349> 37° J D ’Alatri’s dramatised theological position of, 121; discussion version, 334, 353, 373; Pere Richard’s of theological questions, 122-31 ; Com­ version, 354, 376 ; other variations of the mentary on the Four Gospels, 127; on legend, 355, 356; the true story, 356, John the Baptist’s remains, 128; on 366-7. See also II Cappuccino Scozzese. Homicide, 129; on a reading of the ----- Colonel, 336. Vulgate, John xxi., 130; on the Im­ ----- Edward (?), younger half-brother of the maculate Conception, 130; his Commen­ Archangel, 341, 350, 351, 352. tary on St. Mark, 131; offered chair at ----- William, 353. Oxford, 133; letter to Major of Eck on ------(?), elder brother of Archangel the study of theology, 136. George. See De Torrey. Maldonatus, John, S.J., 47, 133» blames, Letters and Memorials o f Cardinal Allen, neglect of Scriptures, 21 ; reforms ecclesi­ 177, 201, 209, 210. astical study, 22; opposes the ‘ literal Lewis, Owen, Bishop of Cassano, 209. sense,’ 50; his Commentary on the Gospelst Lierre, betrayal of, by Colonel Sempill, 133; on the study of theology at Paris, q.z>., 321, 323. 134- Lignori, 117. Marchesinus, author of Mammoireciust 22, Limoges, Peter of, 10. 23. Lindsay, Roger, called ‘ Ephiphanes,’ q.v. ‘ Manifold literal sense,’ doctrine of, 48* ----- Lord William, urges James vi. to 49, 50. take measures against Papists, 255 ; on Martin Mar-Prelate tracts,, 145.. James v i.’s intrigues with Rome in 1593, ----- Dr. Gregory, translates the Vulgate 309- New Testament, 93 ; his Treatise of Logie, Andrew, of Rayne, on Archangel Schisme secretly printed and seized, 151. Leslie, 358. Martyrs, Roman Catholic, in England. See Lombard, Peter, Master of the Sentences, Roman Catholics. 24,2 8 ,114. Marwood, possessed of a devil, 162, 168 ; Lord’s Prayer, the, variations in, 60. exorcised, 166. Lorimer, Professor, on the Law of Nations, Mary Queen of Scots, 206, 207, 208, 221, 388. 223 ; in England (1568), 183; her con­ Lucian, his recension of the Bible, 82 and H. nection with the contemplated assassina­ Lucinius Boeticus, 72, 89. tion of Elizabeth, 200; the centre of Ludolph of Saxony, 42 ; his Vita Christie Roman Catholic intrigues, 220, 237, 246 ; 40, 42. recalls Scottish troops from Holland, 232, Ludovisio, Cardinal, on Archangel Leslie, 328; letter from Lennox (1582), 236; 332. her correspondence with Mendoza, 237. INDEX 403

Mathieu, Father Claude* *97. on Philip’s claim to the English crown, Mayenne, Duke of, 198, 200; 208. Maximilian i i .-, his opposition to the Roman Origen on copies of the New Testament, Church, 285. 57 ; his Hexaplar, 74, 88. Maxwell, Lord, captures Sir Wm. Stewart, Originalia, 13, 99. 329- Mayne, Cuthbert, his harsh treatment, 189. P a r is in the fourteenth century— Scottish Mediaeval Latin, disregard of, 98. students at, 2 ; Sorbonne, 3, 12, 13, 14; Medicis, Mary of, 341. stationers, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10; librarii, 4, 5, 7, Melanchthon, on John Major’s Commentary, 8, 17; study of jurisprudence at, 6; 124. advertisement of books, 7 ; price of books Melchior Cano, Dominican, 134. and printing, 7, 10; price of lodgings, 9 ; Melino, alias of Parsons, 238 n. purchasing power of money, 9 ; libraries, Melville, Andrew, 294, 297, 299. 12, 13, 14, 15; cost of library, 16, 17; Mendoza, Bernardino de, Spanish ambassa­ lending of books, 17, 18. dor, 199, 228, 322; shelters Parsons and - — university of, 2, 5-8, 45, 133; study of communicates to him the Spanish plans theology at, in Middle Ages, 34, 134. (1580), 222; his ‘ Scotch project,’ 227; ----- See also Bible. his advice to Philip 11. on the mission to Parma, Prince of, 267, 323, 329. Scotland (1582), 230-1; his mistrust of Parsons, Father Robert, S.J., 214, 3 11; Scotsmen, 231,324; his interview with lands in England (1580), 142, 190; nature Holt, 233 ; his correspondence with Mary of his mission, 192, 217 ; his intrigues and Queen of Scots, 237 ; indignant at inde­ plans, 219, 221; sheltered by Mendoza, pendence of Jesuits, 236, 237; his intrigues 222; his private printing-press, 146, 148, in 1582, 236, 239, 240 j interview with 222; sends Watts into Scotland, 223; Sir Wm. Stewart (1585), 330^ the printing-press seized, 149, 224; escapes Methan^ Thomas, missionary priest, 209. to Normandy (1581), 149, 193, 224; Middle Ages, Biblical studies in. See Bible. sends Holt on his Scottish mission (1581), ------study of jurisprudence, 6; theo­ 226; his position among the Jesuits in logical studies in, 34,134 j study of ethics, 1581, 228, 241; his work on the Con­ 35- tinent, 194-5, 23I '» directs the move­ Mill, Dr., 76. ments of Jesuits (1582), 234, 235; his Molinists, theological school of, 117. movements on the Continent (1582), 238 Mollio, John, reformer, 280. and note; sent to Gregory x m . by the Monymusk House, 342, 347, 354; the pro­ Duke of Guise, 203; implores Philip to perty of the Forbeses, 349, 370; burned take action (1584), 203; summoned to during Cromwell’s protectorate, 354. Rome by Sixtus v., 204; takes the lead Morton, D r., 220, 315 5 his intrigues in of the Catholic party in 1594, 214; his Elizabeth’s reign, 184; arrested, 223. seminaries in Spain, 214; Superior of the Musso, Cometio, Bishop of Bitonto, draws up English College at Rome, 214; on the a report for the Council of Trent on the importance of the conversion of Scotland, * Abuses of Scripture/ 63. 225 ; on the invasion of England, 239. Passio Scotorum Perjuratorum, 20. Narratives of Scottish Catholics under Mary Paterson, Mr. James, his translation of the Stewart andJames VI., edited by Father Obit Book o f St. John Baptist, Ayr, 100. Forbes-Leith, 308, 321. Patriotism, 383. Nations, law.of. See International Law. Paul ill. appoints a commission for the ------intercourse among, 383, 384. revision of the Vulgate, 69. ----- the family of, 387, 391. ----- iv ., 285; encourages the Inquisition, Nerne, Peter, alias of Robert Bruce, q.v. 281. New Testament, the writings and language ----- v. visited by Archangel Leslie, 339. of, 56; copies of, 57; divergence in ‘ Peace, Universal.’ Is it attainable?, 391 ; copies, 60. its probable effects, 391. Nominalists, the school of, 115; revived by Peebles, John, Bishop of Dunkeld, 2. Durandus and Auriol, 119. Penrith, Alan, 12. Perretti, Cardinal. See Sixtus V. O c k h a m , W il l i a m of, 43, 44, 108, 11 1; Persons. See Parsons. starts the ‘ Nominalist’ school, 116, 119; Philip 11. of Spain, 315, 319; intrigues his philosophical views, 119-20. against Elizabeth, 194, 198, 199, 201; his Old Testament, the, in Hebrew, 54, 73 ; share in the Holy War, 198-9; his pro­ differs from the Greek versions, 56, 58-9. crastination, 203 ; undertakes invasion of Olivares, Spanish ambassador, 204, 248; England (1585), 204; claims to the Eng­ procures Allen’s promotion, 205; his lish throne, 207-8, 319 5 the Armada sets memorandum to Philip ii; (1586), 205-6; out, 208 ; on its failure Philip is invited 404 INDEX

by Scotch Catholic earls to renew his Roman Catholic conspiracies in Scotland, invasion, 249; his plans for the invasion 246-7. See also Scotland. of England (1592-3), 260, 261. Roman Catholic literature of the seventeenth a Philip ill. of Spain, 325. century, 335. ----- iv. of Spain, 325. ----- Catholicism in Scotland in the seven­ Pica, Vagnozzo, friend of Archangel Leslie, teenth century, 335. 346, 348, 368-9. Row, author of Historie o f the Kirk of Pius 11., 118. Scotland, on John Craig, 282, 283. ----- iv ., 69, 182, 285. ‘ Ruthven, the Raid of,’ 197, 297, 328. ----- V., 71, 185 ; his bull of excommunica­ tion against Elizabeth, 142, 186-7. S t . A u g u s t i n e on the old Latin version of Plantin, Christopher, 72. the Bible, 80. Pole, Cardinal, 280. St. Bernard, 28. Pounde, friend of Parsons and Campion, St. Croce, Cardinal, 68, 71. 143, 144- St. Damasus includes Jerome’s version of Press censorship in Middle Ages, 138; in the Psalms in the Roman Liturgy, 86. Henry v i i i .’s reign, 139; in Elizabeth’s St. Dionysius of Corinth, 57. reign, 145. St. Francis of Sales, 117; on the authentic ----- liberty of, 138. Vulgate, 91. Pringle, servant of Colonel Sempill, captured St. Irenaeus, 57, 84. with letters from Catholic earls to Philip St. Jerome, 30, 59, 74, 79; his birth and 11. (1589), 249, 316. education, 81; his revision of the Latin Printing-presses, secret, 146, 147. text o f the Bible, 81; collates m ss. for his ‘ Propaganda, the Congregation of,’ 341 ; edition, 82 ; revises old Latin version of summons Archangel Leslie to Rome (1630), the Septuagint, 86; his version of the 345, 367. Psalms, 66; his translation of Hebrew Psalter, the Roman, 86 and note. Bible, 87; his qualifications for the task, 88 ; its reception, 89 ; reputation of his Questions, 35, 39; Hugh of St. Victor’s, Bible, 90. quoted, 39. St. Justin Martyr, 58. St. Omer, Arnulph of, 12. ‘ R a i d of Leith, the,’ 274. St. Peter Damian, 90. Ranke, E ., on the Roman edition of the St. Stephen of Citeaux, 90. Septuagint, 71 n. St. Thomas. See Aquinas. Reasons why Catholics refuse to go to Church, St. Victor, Hugh of, 28; on the allegorical 147. interpretation of the Bible, 26-27; com­ Reformation, the, its influence on Biblical plains of its excessive use, 31 ; his exposi­ studies, 21. tion of the Psalms, 37 ; his Questions and Renan, 51, 106. Decisions on the Epistle to the Romans Reynolds, Dr., assists in the translation of quoted, 39 ; on the Vulgate, 65 n. the Vulgate, 93. ----- Richard of, 28. Rhemes testament, preface quoted, 62. Salamanca, centre of the scholastic revival Riccio, David, his murder, 290, 291. in the sixteenth century, 120. Richard, Pere, his version of the legend of Salmeron, accepts the ‘ literal sense,’ 49. Archangel Leslie, 354, 361 «., 376; his Sampiretti, 275, 310. Epilogue, 376. Sanders, Dr., English priest, 184, 185, 220; Rinuccini, John Baptist, Archbishop of lands in Ireland as papal nuncio (1580), Fermo, 332-3, 348, 365 ; his meeting 190; his letter to Cardinal Allen on with Archangel Leslie, 345-6, 368-9. See papal plots against England, 194. also II Cappuccino Scozzese, and Leslie, Sandesone, Robert, alias of Father Aber- Archangel George. cromby, 259. Roberts, Griffith, 209. Santa Cara (St. Cher), Hugh of, compiler Rolle, Richard, allegorical interpretation of of a Correctorium, 33, 90. Scriptures, 32. Scotists, the school of, 108, 116-17. $ee Roman Catholics in Elizabeth’s reign, 141, Scotus, Duns. 142; their political designs, 142-3, 223, Scotland, treatment of Roman Catholics in 227, 246; publish contraband literature, Elizabeth’s reign, 180; Roman Catholic 142; Roman Catholic martyrs in England, intrigues in, 220, 221, 223; the mission 178 ; intrigues against Elizabeth, 184-5, of 1581, ^8, 229 sqq.'y its objects, 233; I9°, I93, s?<7' » hesitate to rebel against Holt’s mik ns, 232-5; Crichton’s mission Elizabeth, 183; their persecution under to, in 1582, 234, 235; Roman Catholic Elizabeth, 178-9, 181-2; objects of the intrigues against, 227; Jesuits expelled mission to Scotland of 1582, 233 ; their from, 252. See also Book - trade and treatment in Scotland, 180; nature of Roman Catholics. INDEX 405

Scottish soldiers serving in Holland (1573), Stanley, Sir William, betrayer of Deventer, 322. 213, 325. Scotus, John Duns (the ‘ Subtle Doctor’), State, the, ethical action of, 378, 379; 26, 108, 115 ; his Commentaries, 37 ; his low level of ethical conduct, 380; evolu­ theological views, 116,120; the ‘ Scotists,’ tion of, 382. 116-17. States, unlawfulness of, 385. Second Book o f Discipline, the, 295. Siatuta Ecclesice Scoticance, 100. Seminaries, the foreign, 214, 215. See also Stephen, Sir James, on force and justice, 381. Douay. Stephens, R., his Greek Testament, 75, 76. Sempill, Gilbert, 324. Stewart, Sir William, of Houston, 327; his ----- Hugh, 326. origin, 328; serves in the Low Countries ----- Colonel William, of Lierre, 315, 326; (I575-I 58i), 328; returns to Scotland, his birth and family, 320; enters Lierre 328; embassy to England, 328; rises to (1582) as captain of a company of Scots, power, 329; captured by Lord Maxwell, 322 ; betrays Lierre, 324 ; goes to Spain, 329; goes to Denmark, 330; visits 324; returns to Scotland in 1588, and in­ Mendoza at Paris, 330; returns to Scot­ trigues there, 325 ; captured in Edinburgh, land, 330; further Continental embassies, and escapes by the aid of Huntly, 315, 3 3 i- 325 ; visits Mendoza, 325 ; founds College Strabo, Walafridus, his Glossa Ordinaria, at Madrid in 1613, 325 ; marries Donna 28-31. Maria de Ledesma, 325. Stukeley, Sir Thomas, expedition of, 189. Sentences, The, of Peter Lombard, 114. Supplication of Beggars, the, by Simon Fish, Sententiarii, 35. prohibited, 139. Septuagint, the, 55-56 ; superseded by the Supremacy, Act of, 182. -Vulgate, 56 ; differs from the Vulgate and Symmachus’ translation of the Bible from Hebrew readings, 58-59; not rejected by Hebrew, 88. the Council of Trent, 65, 67 ; Roman edition of Sixtus v., 47, yon. ; the Aldine T a r g u m s , 55. text, 70 and n. ; Origen’s Hexaplar edi­ Tassis, J. B., Spanish agent, 195, 196; tion, 74, 88 ; old Latin version of, revised letter to Philip on the murder of Elizabeth, by Jerome, 86. 199. Servandus, Abbot, 71. Tertullian, on the old Latin Bible, 79. Seton, Lord, his connection with Roman The Admirable and Astonishing Life of Catholic intrigues in Scotland, 225, 229, Archangel Leslie, 365, 368. 234, 236, 258, 314. The Book of Miracles, 158. Simancas Papers, edited by Major Martin The biscoverie of a Gaping G ulf whereunto Hume, 220. England is like to be swallowed, by John Simon, Father, theologian, 48. Stubbs, prohibited, 140. Sirleto, Cardinal, 67, 71. The Red and White Book o f Menzies, mis­ Sixtus Senensis, on an exposition of Duns translations in, 103. Scotus, 37; quotes a scholastic lecture, The wonderful Life of the Count Leisley, 38. called in religion Father Archangel, 364. Sixtus v., 204., 205; his Roman edition of Theodotion’s translation of the Bible from the Septuagint, 47, 70; the revision of the Hebrew into Greek, 65, 88. Vulgate, 71, 72 ; offers money for expedi­ Theological studies at Paris, Maldonatus on, tion against England, 207; his Bull of Deposition, 209, 216. Theology,I34< course of, at Paris, in• fourteenth, Smith, Ann, possessed of a devil, 159, 163, century, 34, 35; schools of, in Middle 174; exorcism of, 171. Ages, 113 sqq. Socrates, ecclesiastical historian, supports ‘ Theology, Scholastic,’ 105; history of, Vulgate reading, 85. 113 ; censured by Carvajal, 135. Soissons, exorcisms at, 161. Thomas, William, his Historic of Italy Sophronius, translates the Psalms and prohibited, 139-40. Prophets into Greek, 89. Thomists, the school of, 115_ 17- See Sorbonne, Robert of, founder of the College Aquinas. of Sorbonne, 12; compiler of a correc- Thomson, exorcist, 162. torium, 34; on excommunication, 112. ----- Father, Franciscan, 362, 363, 371. ----- the, founded in 1256, 12; the library, Tischendorf, 77, 83, 85. 12. See also Paris. Tostatus, Bishop of Avila, commentary of, Spanish Blanks, the, 244, 257, 260; dis­ 36, 46. covered, 254, 309, 316. See also Kerr. Trail, Walter, Bishop of St. Andrews, 2. Spottiswoode, Archbishop, on John Craig, Trayford, possessed of a devil, 168. 279, 283, 285. Trent, Council of, its objects, 62; opened Stamp, exorcist, 162, 170. December 1545, 63; commission reports 406 INDEX

on ‘ Abuses of Scripture, * 63 and note j edition of the Vulgate, 81 sqq.; agree1 m declares Vulgate authentic, 63, 64) sig­ ment with ancient Greek mss., 84* 85; j p nificance of this decision, 66; reception revisions of the Vulgate by Alcum and |fj of its decision, 67. See also Vulgate. others, 90 ; translated by English Semi- f Troy, Dr., his Bible, 94. narists, 92-93. See also St. Jerome* , Tyndale’s English Bible, 62, 91* ; ----- New Testament prohibited, 139* W a lto n ’s * Polyglot*5 76, fkj Tyrrell, Antony, exorcist, 156, 159, 162, War, 384, 385. | | 171* Wardlaw, Walter, Bishop of Glasgow, 2. ML Watts (or Waytes), William* S.J., 222 ; his fit mission to Scotland (1580), 223; his second aB Uniformity, Act of, *41, 182. Universities in Middle Ages, 5, 7, 8, 45. mission (1581), 224-5, 229* j i l Wentworth, Peter, his Pithie Exhortation to University of Paris. See Paris. Her Majesty prohibited, 140. jyf Westmorland, Earl of, 196, 318. V ien n e, Council of, 60% Weston, Father William, S.J., 150, 156, | Vita antiques Sanctorum Scotia, mis­ 158, 162, 166, 169. | translation in, 102. Williams, Frideswode, possessed of a devil, ,|‘ Vulgate, the, its antiquity, 64; history of 158, 159, 165, 174; exorcism of, 169-70. the name, 79 ; text of, revised by Stephen —— Sara, possessed of a devil, 159, 163 Harding and others in the thirteenth cen- sqq. ; exorcisms of, 166. tury, 33; supersedes the Septuagint, 56 ; Winzet, Ninian, his Last Blast of the Trttm- - divergences from Septuagint readings, pet against the Usurped Authority o f John 58; interpolations in, 60; revised Pro­ Knox, 139. testant editions, 62 and note; Council of Wolsey, Cardinal, offers chair of theology to Trent declares the Vulgate to be authentic John Major, 133. i (1545), 63, 64; significance of this de­ Worthington, D h , 93, 214* j cision, 66, 67 ; its revision begun in 1546, 69, 70; Codex Amiatinus discovered, 71; Y a x l e y , Mr,, exorcist, 156, the revision completed under Sixtus v ,, 72; Yepez, Bishop of Tarragona, author of j its reception, 73; conformity with other Historia particular de la Persecucion de editions of the Bible, 77; St, Jerome’s Inglaterra y de los Martirios, 157, 170. j

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